Exotic Bugs Join the Houston Zoo

This Memorial Day weekend, the Houston Zoo opened its first insectarium, featuring some exotic species in over two dozen custom habitats.

"They're fascinating and they're just hard to see out in the wild," said Kevin Hodge, curator of the Children's Zoo at the park, as workers put the final touches on the $3 million project, according to ABC News. "Most of these insects around here no one's ever going to see on a trip to Africa or Malaysia. A lot of times they're at the very tops of trees and could be among thousands of animals living on one huge canopy tree."

The city came up with a specialized display to showcase many of the exotic creatures, including giant cave cockroaches from Panama and northern South America, black Asian forest scorpions from Malaysia, white-eyed assassin bugs from South Africa and blue death feigning beetles. The "bug house" as the exhibit is called, is also home to the red-spotted longhorn beetle of Southeast Asia.

"Insects are cool and we need them here," Hodge said. "They're not just creepy crawly things we want to get rid of. Insects are a good indicator of how the planet is doing as a whole."

The bug house is 2,000-square-feet, and took two years of work and eight months of construction to piece together, with multiple U.S. Department of Agriculture inspections, according to ABC News.

"We're taking something that people rarely see and are bringing them into a place where they can appreciate nature," Hodge added, via the news organization

The 55-acre Houston Zoo is among the nation's most visited zoos, last year attracting some 2.2 million visitors.