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A woman and child look into a tank in the Bug Gallery. The room around them is hive-shaped, with warm lights and insect tanks in the background.

Plan Your Visit

Bug Gallery

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The living displays of our Bug Gallery celebrate the beauty, diversity and importance of insects, spiders and other invertebrates from Alberta and around the world. Renew your sense of wonder as you discover denizens of the coral reef, search for camouflaged insects hiding in plain sight, or marvel at the complex social behaviour of a nest of paper wasps.

Our Bug Gallery offers a fun, safe, and close-up observational experience to learn about invertebrates and the important ecological roles that they play. Explore the invertebrate diversity of coral reefs, tropical rainforests, deserts and our own backyards while learning how invertebrates find mates, capture prey and avoid becoming prey themselves. Try weaving your own spider web or glimpse behind-the-scenes into our "hatchery" as we conduct research to better understand these often underappreciated, but incredibly important, little creatures that run the world.

  • The role of invertebrates in the world's ecosystems and their adaptations to these environments are as fascinating as they are varied.
  • Invertebrates make up 97% of the animal kingdom.
  • One in five living things named by science is a beetle.
  • In our Bug Gallery, you'll discover stories such as:
    • What is an invertebrate
    • Metamorphosis
    • Ambush predators
    • Finding a mate
    • Reef Conservation
    • Social Insects
    • Warning colours
    • Freshwater Diversity