CHANGES TO OUR REGULAR OPEN HOURS: we will be closing early (4pm) on FRIDAY, MAY 23 for a staff meeting! (fb)

Can you spot the beetles? Just wait for it! What you’re looking at is a pile of frass - aka caterpillar poop. Masterfully hidden amongst the frass pellets are two beetles that appear strikingly similar to the caterpillar droppings (at least until they get up and walk away)! These sneaky little fellas are warty leaf beetles belonging to the genus Neochlamisus. We simply call them frass beetles, given that their defense mechanism is mimicking a caterpillar poop. As soon as they feel threatened, they perfectly tuck all their appendages into their body, and become an idle frass pellet to fool predators. Frass beetles are such incredible insects to showcase under our microscope at The Caterpillar Lab and at all of our traveling educational shows. It never fails to both impress and make visitors laugh when they see a frass pellet sprout legs and start walking (and even flying) around! They also reveal some of the most unexpected ways that caterpillars shape our environment - even just their droppings alone are capable of opening the doors to clever evolutionary niches for other animals! (fb)