Bug Festival 2023

Calling all entomologists, future entomologists, and lovers of all things bugs! The Virginia Museum of Natural History is hosting Bug Festival 2023 on Saturday, January 28 and we want to see YOU at the museum! Admission rates apply.

Bug Festival 2023 features the museum's scientists and researchers showing-off a huge variety of preserved (not alive) specimens from the museum's entomology (insect) collections, most of which are rarely exhibited to the public!

Displays also include live insects, fossil insects from the museum's paleontology collections (some of which you can view under a microscope), as well as preserved herpetology specimens, including preserved specimens of Virginia reptiles and amphibians that feast on insects...yummy!

Not to be outdone, the museum's mammalogy team will show-off a variety of preserved specimens of their own, highlighting some of the mammals that feast on invertebrates!

For the brave and adventurous, Bug Festival 2023 will feature a "Bug Tasting Table", in which - well - the name should speak for itself!

Bug Festival 2023 also features bug-themed crafts and activities for children, balloon animals, face painting, and food trucks! Be sure to stop by the Museum Store for bug-themed items available for purchase!

PRESERVED SPECIMENS (NOT ALIVE) INCLUDE
Neptune’s goblet sponge
Giant sea spider
Giant tailless whip scorpion
Giant tropical centipede
Giant tropical millipedes
Mantises
Yellow-winged walkingstick
Giant walkingstick
Northern walkingstick
Leaf insect
Tropical and temperate cicadas
Empress cicada
Tropical lanternfly
Common bed bug
Tropical locusts
Eastern dobsonfly
Violin beetle
Tropical jewel beetle
Tropical stag beetle
Goliath beetles
Five-horned rhinoceros beetle
Hercules beetles
Harlequin beetle
Tropical long-horned beetle
Titan beetle
Sabertooth longhorn beetle
Exotic weevils
Milkweed butterflies
Longwing butterflies
Clearwing butterflies
Birdwings
Morpho butterflies
Madagascar sunset moth
White witch moth
Hummingbird moths
Atlas moth
Giant Ichneumon
Jewel wasps
Cow killer
European hornet
Eastern cicada killer
Red-footed cannibal fly
Puff adder
Green mamba

LIVE SPECIMENS INCLUDE
Desert millipedes
Giant vinegaroon
Tailless whip scorpion
Emperor scorpion
Mexican redknee tarantula
Mexican golden red rump tarantula
Horrid king assassin

ADMISSION IS ONLY
$10/Ages 18-59
$5/Ages 3-17
$5/Seniors 60+
FREE for children under 3
FREE for VMNH Members
FREE for members of ASTC Passport participating institutions
FREE for EBT card holders who present their EBT card and official photo ID
[Admission is available at the gate. Groupons are accepted. This is primarily an indoor event. All displays, activities and offerings are subject to change.

BUG FESTIVAL 2023 TAKES PLACE AT...
Virginia Museum of Natural History
21 Starling Avenue
Martinsville, VA 24112
[This is primarily an indoor event.]

BUG FESTIVAL 2023 IS MADE POSSIBLE BY...
The Helen S. & Charles G. Patterson Jr. Charitable Foundation Trust

FREE ADMISSION FOR EBT CARDHOLDERS MADE POSSIBLE BY...
The Institute of Museum and Library Services and Hooker Furnishings.