Hi Nicholas,

I like butterflies and have been to see "butterfly gardens" in Australia and Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, sometimes we could see huge blue morpho butterflies flying in the rain forest. They are very beautiful.

Several years ago, when I was a volunteer at the Science Museum of Minnesota, I worked in an exhibit called "Backyard Monsters" that featured huge, robotic insects. The museum volunteers had a cart full of interesting things related to insects. One activity I did with visitors showed where silk comes from, while another showed different kinds of spiders and how they catch their prey. We also had some mounted samples to show visitors up close. The exhibit had a giant robotic scorpion, so I often walked around the exhibit with a box containing a mounted scorpion specimen in my apron pocket.

To be perfectly honest, even though I was okay carrying around a dead scorpion in my apron pocket, I'm not terribly fond of certain kinds of insects. If I were to run into a living scorpion, I would probably scream really loud.

Kris