The 30th Annual Bug Fair!

I went to the Bug Fair last weekend.  I was surprised to discover this was the 30^th Annual Bug Fair at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles.  I admit I’m not all that interested in bugs, insects or creepy-crawly critters but I am curious.  I also wondered whether this would this be an event just for kids.  It sounded like it could be.  I had to go and find out.

I couldn’t have been more wrong. This was an event for everyone!  The fair took over the entire museum.  There were vendors everywhere!  Right near the entrance and the Grand Foyer was this booth selling live millipedes.  I certainly had no interest in those but I did like the woman on the right and her bug imitation.

Throughout the Hall of North American Mammals and The African Mammal Hall there were vendor booths arrayed.  (I hope no visitor came to the museum unaware of the event and wanted to just see the mammal exhibits.)  People were selling all kinds of things:  Beetle specimens, for example.

I never saw such huge insects!  The top one is an elephant beetle.  As to the large one below it, I haven’t a clue.

And for something completely different–hand painted linens.   My daughter stopped here to buy an apron.  Dishragstudio is on Etsy, as were several of the jewelry makers we stopped to talk with.

Feeling adventurous and assured this was a brilliant idea, I stopped at the Lithic Nutrition booth and sampled a blueberry muffin made with cricket!  Not bad.  It tasted like a blueberry muffin.

But you may be thinking this is all a big merchants show and all about shopping. Not at all.  There were lots of activities for the kids.  And for the adults there was a cooking demonstration.  I managed to catch the end of it as Master Chefs were in a cook-off to whip up some tasty bug desserts.  The final dishes both included chocolate so they had to be good, right?

A big highlight was going on the tour to the Entomology Department on the third floor.  This was serious bug-stuff.  Drawers and drawers of it.  I looked at a parasite wasp the size of the dot on the letter ‘i”.  No, it wasn’t that big.  Well, it was tiny but through the microscope it was full of color! This image was taken just by holding my camera in front of the eyepiece.  But you can still see the color!

Bottom line on the Bug Fair?  It was marvelous.  My family and I spent the entire day there and we’re all adults!  I would recommend it highly to anyone in the Los Angeles area next spring. Who knows you too may get to hold a tarantula.