Skip to main content
circle device image

Bugs in Your Backyard 

Discover a tiny world of insects in your backyard with a new exhibition touring Canterbury.

An extreme close up of a damselfly. Canterbury Museum 2007.178.122

A bright pink katydid, a fly that might be the food of the future and a beetle that could be unique to the South Island all feature in Bugs in Your Backyard. The exhibition includes over 30 insects from Canterbury Museum’s collection of about 125,000 pinned specimens. The bugs, which are drawn from a range of insect groups including moths, beetles, wasps, flies and bees, are all found in Canterbury.

These include the soldier fly, which is being tested as a possible food source, a distinctive Barbie pink Katydid and a sand scarab beetle that lives around the braided rivers of the South Island.

You can learn all about the insects and hunt for bugs in a special diorama created for the exhibition.

The Canterbury Museum touring exhibition will travel to libraries and community centres across the region over several months.