One of the local attractions in my city is a small insectarium in a large park. I’ve been to the insectarium a few times before, but after a dreary week of cloudy skies and rain, I decided to check it out again. Luckily, I was just in time for the last weekend of their special exhibit on red list insects on the verge of extinction.
After a bit of a Saturday lie-in, I biked over to spend an hour or two wandering around inside. There weren’t many people there yet, so I quickly sanitized my hands and purchased a ticket through the vending machine before entering the world of insects.
“Honey, I shrunk the kids!”
This museum is very much geared towards children, which you can tell by the “Honey I shrunk the kids” style giant insect habitat model which is the first exhibit you walk through. Passing between giant blades of grass, everywhere you look you are likely to spot another insect. A sampling of the biodiversity lying at our feet, just out of sight.
Here there are a few displays of pinned insect specimens with some information about insect species or families. Rounding a corner (and a giant dragonfly) you can see into an ant colony model on the other side. Once through this upsized kingdom of insects, you are faced with a giant model bee. Usually, it is an interactive display that children can climb up to and touch screens for more information. For now, though, it is closed off due to COVID safety restrictions.
Specimens galore
Buzzing past the bee for a few pics, I detoured into a large room on the left: the specimen room. Here, behind glass cases, are specimens of butterflies, bees, beetles, and other insects found in Japan and within Itami city specifically. Neatly organized together in groups with facts posted here and there, you can quickly appreciate just how many insects there are living all around us.
This room also had two special exhibits. One on ladybugs, and the other on the bull-headed shrike. I swung by the ladybug exhibit, quickly looking through the life cycle photos before taking a little more time at the shrike exhibit. I hadn’t realized we even had shrike here! Over the last 30 years, the insectarium had been collecting specimens of a unique shrike behavior. Namely, impaling their prey on sharp thorns or sticks. This behavior is what led to their other name: the butcher bird.
The museum had collected a large variety of impaled prey items, from insects like centipedes and giant hornets to small mammals and reptiles like mice and lizards. Quite the balanced diet!
Shrikes have a hooked beak like a raptor, but not the strong talons and feet to help hold and tear their prey apart. They impale it on sharp thorns or branches, or even wedged into forks, to help hold it in place or store it to eat later. So if you happen to see fish or shrimp stuck on some random branches away from the water, that just means you’ve found a shrike’s pantry!
Float among the butterflies
After carefully looking through the desiccated remains of shrike leftovers, it was time for something a little more lively and colorful. Crossing to the other side of the building, past some live insect displays, is the entrance to the butterfly atrium.
This is always one of my favorite parts of the museum. A chance to see so many butterflies, and up-close too. This time, I could even watch them lay their eggs on the undersides of the leaves. Meandering up the slope, surrounded by tropical flowers and fluttering butterflies, the perfect pick me up after a long week spent inside due to rain.
Special Exhibit
At the top of the walkway, it exits out onto the third floor where the learning room/library and special exhibit rooms are. Here, I entered the ICU or “Insect Care Unit”. I couldn’t help but laugh a little at their dedication to the theme. They had 3 large beetle models hooked up to an IV drip just outside the entrance. Cute and easy to understand.
The exhibit was packed with a lot of information. A list of all the threatened insect species in Japan, a chart breaking down the numbers of threatened or critically threatened species, and posters further breaking down the species of specific habitats that were under threat. They explained why they were threatened and what needs to be done, or is being done to address it. Other posters focused on a specific species rather than all the species in one habitat and showcased insects the insectarium was breeding for release into the wild.
While some of this information might be a little difficult for younger children, they did have a nice visual display illustrating why extinction was bad. A globe made of puzzle pieces with a different species or part of nature on each piece represented our planet. The more pieces that get taken away, the less stable it becomes until eventually, it all falls apart. Showing we are all connected and rely on each other to make one planet.
On my way out I grabbed the insectarium’s news booklet which covered the special exhibit with some more details on their conservation activities. This was free for visitors and a nice souvenir to take home for further reading.
A visit is just a walk in the park. . .
Before heading to the mall to grab a snack, I walked through a bit of the park to see if there were any birds around. (Maybe hoping I’d see a shrike after the interesting exhibit inside) I didn’t have to go far before I realized there was a large flock of Great cormorants nesting on the island in the middle of the pond. This island is unique because it is actually in the shape of the islands of Japan, although you can’t really tell from the shoreline. I watched the cormorants swimming, flying, and sunning for a while, taking a few pictures of them and some herons resting nearby.
Feeling hungry, I packed away my camera and headed to the mall. I could explore the rest of the park later, but for now, donuts were calling.
To see more of my visit to Itami Insectarium, check out the Insectarium highlight on my Instagram, @jennywrenrambles.
To learn a little more about the shrike, check out the link below.
https://blog.nature.org/science/2020/01/27/shrikes-meet-the-bird-that-impales-prey-on-spikes/
