Montreal Insectarium Blends Beauty and Beasts

Spend five minutes with Jean-Pierre Bourassa and you just know he’s smitten.

The object of his affection? Two-hundred-thousand arthropods, mostly insects, from 35,000 species.

Bourassa (no relation to Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa) is director of the Montreal Insectarium.

“Some insects are so spectacular,” he says with soft-spoken passion.

He’s right. The trouble is, when most of us think of insects and spiders, we think cockroaches and tarantulas . . . and we think ugly.

The Insectarium, which opened in February, 1990, and had 200,000 visitors during its first four months, claims to be keeper of some of the most “beautiful insects” in the world. Most of them are dead, of course, but many are, one must admit, very attractive.

Butterflies win the beauty contest; the competition pales by comparison. There are hundreds mounted here in distinctive mural display cases. Other cases are laid out on two levels, an upper level for adults and a lower one for children.

Some butterflies are truly knockouts, such as the blue morphos that glows like a Tiffany-lit lamp, the delicate leaf butterfly with its muted colors, and the Danaidae butterfly with its high-fashion black-and-white pattern.

About 10,000 beetles are here, which sounds like a lot until one considers that there are 400,000 known species. Some of these, too, can astound. They look less like insects than Christmas tree ornaments. Some could even pass for gemstones--rubies, amethysts, emeralds and topaz.

The Goliath beetle is not great on looks but considerable in size--the species, which is native to tropical Africa, can reach five inches in length. The museum’s specimen looked curiously like Darth Vadar.

Other insects looked almost cuddly. One was a hairy yellow caterpillar with big round eyes and downy-soft hair. It was present only in a photograph. “They only live five to 10 days, so it would be impractical to have one around,” Bourassa says.

The Insectarium--whose building resembles a stylized insect--has a total area of about 7,000 square feet and includes exhibition areas, open-space laboratories, a multipurpose hall and a 40-seat theater.

One section, called the rearing room, contains terrariums and vivariums of various sizes. It’s possible to view a black widow spinning a web, caterpillars from Costa Rica spinning cocoons and a “walking stick” from Thailand munching on an oak leaf.

In an adjacent laboratory, one can see how insects are preserved. Here a male and female scorpion, together forever, face one another in a “premating dance” with hundreds of pins holding them in position on a wooden base. They look extremely fragile, and indeed it is common for parts to break off when insects are laid out to be preserved. “But that’s all right,” says Bourassa, “we have spare parts.”

Nearby is a display of insect-related gewgaws, such as Jiminy Cricket dolls, wooden pull toys, carved wooden grasshoppers and brass cricket cages from India. They are among the 1,000 items collected by entomologist Douglas Keith McEwan Kevan, professor emeritus of Montreal’s McGill University. The display represents a field of study called ethnoentomology.

“That’s a new word,” explains Bourassa, who is also a teacher and researcher at the University of Quebec. Ethnoentomology pertains to the social and cultural aspects of insects, and it’s “a very new approach.”

The Insectarium presents a variety of hands-on exhibits, things to push and pull or play with. A computerized display allows you to design a custom insect. Another emits the sounds of locusts, crickets, katydids and cicadas. It has a dial one turns to answer the primordial question: “Who eats who?”

A sampling of facts to discover:

--The Sphinx moth with its 10-inch-long proboscis was discovered 40 years after Charles Darwin proclaimed there had to be such an insect.

--Insects are used to make varnish.

--A flea can jump 150 times its own height.

The theater shows a 2O-minute bilingual slide program produced by National Geographic. Employing 23 projectors, the show is avant-garde and sometimes puzzling when it seems to have little to do with insects, but still worthwhile to enjoy some of the graphic effects.

GUIDEBOOK

Montreal Insectarium

Getting there: Air Canada, American Airlines, Delta, Northwest and USAir all offer daily flights from Los Angeles to Montreal. Fares are competitive. An advance-purchase ticket costs as low as $379 round trip.

Where to stay: Downtown and Old Montreal are two favorite tourist areas. In the heart of the city are the Hotel Chateau Versailles (1659 Sherbrooke St. West H3H 1E3, 514-993-3611, $75-$120 double) and Le Cantlie Sherbrooke (1110 Sherbrooke St. West H3A 1G9, 514-844-3951, $65-$87 double). The InterContinental Montreal (the only hotel in Old Montreal) is scheduled to open July 1 (361 St. Antoine West H2Y 1P5, 514-987-9900, $115 double), while the B&B;, Au Passantt du Sans Souci (171 St. Paul West H2Y 1Z5, 514-843-7331, $75 double), has been pleasing visitors to Old Montreal for years.

The Insectarium: At 4101 Sherbrooke St. East (514-872-1400), it’s adjacent to the Montreal Botanical Garden, the third largest in the world after London’s and Berlin’s. A five-acre Japanese garden opened in 1989, and the new Chinese Garden, the largest outside China, will open on Friday. All are within walking distance of Pie IX metro station.

Museum open daily, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., except on holidays, including Canada Day July 1, Labor Day Sept. 2 and Thanksgiving Oct. 14.

Admission: about $3.50 for adults, $1.75 for seniors, handicapped and children 5 through 17. Children under 5 are free.

From mid-May to mid-September, a free shuttle bus transports visitors between Olympic Park, the Botanical Garden and the Insectarium.

For more information: Call Tourism Quebec at (800) 363-7777.