The Insects of New Orleans

I’ve always wanted to fly into fun!

Luckily the insects were caged, and not loose. That would have been pretty horrible. These particular insects were housed at an insect museum on Canal Street. I went inside, paid my $17 admission fee, and it quickly became obvious that this was a museum intended for children.

A “Free Candy” van picture would probably be in poor taste, but I did consider including it.

Whatevas, I can enjoy it just the same! I’ll show those children how to properly enjoy a museum! At once, my maturity was apparent over the children.

EWW HE’S TOUCHING IT!

That snake with legs is called a millipede, and they are apparently harmless, much like rolly-pollies. The employer assigned with holding the creature seemed quite fond of it, passionately defending it to the museum patrons that were grossed out by it. I’m nearly sure I heard him whispering sweet nothings to it as I walked away.

I then found my new favorite shellfish (at least in the list of top 5 all time favorite shellfish):

I love creatures with little beady eyes.

And then it’s monstrous giant plastic representation:

AHH!! THIS WILL HAUNT MY DREAMS

There were those ants that are always featured in Nat Geo shows that carry leaves.

They were the busiest insects in the museum by far, really putting those other free loading insects to shame.

Termites are a problem in this area, or so I surmised by the section completely devoted to them.

Comes with free termites to take home!

My favorite part was the section devoted to swamp life. It was there I ran into (one of) my sworn enemy(s), a 1 foot long alligator. Our encounter came as a surprise. I next to the aquarium, snapping pictures, when I turned to look at the aquarium. The alligator was floating there, watching me. I let out a scream of surprise, and the alligator jumped and swam away. It reminded me of a story that my brother-in-law just told me. One day, he arrived home earlier than usual and his wife was taking a shower. He was purposely being loud so she’d know he was there, and then he headed into the bathroom for some reason. She pushed open the curtain to get out and spotted him, and screamed in surprise. My brother-in-law thought she saw something he didn’t, and (in surprise) started screaming as well, which scared her, so she screamed more, so for a moment, both of them just stood there, screaming. That’s how my encounter with the alligator felt.

There’s a couple other sections showing spiders, and scorpions and all sorts of creepy gross insects, so I moved on to a slightly less creepy section, the butterflies.

Display of real butterflies emerging from their cocoons.

Frankly, I don’t know why people like butterflies (well, no, I do have an idea of why), I think they are creepy and weird. They are basically flying, gross worms. Seeing their little faces up close gives me the creeps.

Just cropping this photo down gives me the heeby jeebies.

There was an area where you go in and walk around with the butterflies loose. There was also a koi pond, where I witnessed the attempted murder of a butterfly that had landed in the water. Three koi swam up and grabbed at the thing, trying to rip it to shreds. I felt almost like I should cover the nearby childrens’ eyes. How it managed to escape I do not understand, but somehow it may it to the edge of the pond where it disappeared into the foliage.

Who’s bright idea was it to put butterflies in with these ruthless killers??

There was a tank of moths in the butterfly room, as apparently moths are lesser creatures and not allowed to socialize with the butterflies.

Probably because they look like a tank of vampires and/or bats.

They were huge, bigger than my hand. I should have held up my hand to show the contrast, but you can just imagine my monster hand next to this monster insect.

It gazes out of the glass, yearning to be free like the butterflies.

I made my way to the exit and saw the single most beautiful flying worm.

I admired it for a moment and then pressed the button to leave. There’s either some kind of bug (hehe) with the door release, or they like to make you wait before it opens. So as I stood there, a giant ugly butterfly started hovering over me.

“It must like you!” laughed the attendent watching.

“Well isn’t that sweet!” I started to say, before it turned into a yelp cause the gross thing landed on me. “AHH!!! GET IT OFF!!”

And then the doors released and I ran through to escape the clutches of the giant butterfly. You are actually supposed to shake all butterflies off before leaving the area, so as soon as I ran through the doors I wondered if I had released a butterfly plague upon humanity. But a check in the mirrors showed it had not come through the door with me. Probably got scared when I screamed, much like the alligator and my brother-in-law/sister-in-law.

And that was the end of the museum.

Still to come, ghosts of the French Quarter! I know everyone’s on the edge of their seat!