Nature Museum hones in on amazing 'Architects'

Since opening in 1999, Chicago's Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum's temporary exhibits have all been rented from other institutions.

“That pool is really small and it's very expensive, not just the rental fees but the shipping costs,” said Alvaro Ramos, vice president of exhibits.

While it still plans to use traveling exhibits in the future, the museum had decided on opening a self-curated exhibit every spring starting this year with “Nature's Architects,” which runs through Sept. 12.

Visitors enter the exhibit by passing through a structure resembling a nest with screens showing videos of animals that build their own homes.

“We really want (visitors) to get to a point in their mind that humans are just another organism inhabiting the planet,” Ramos said. “We're not different from other animals and we do things like other animals.”

The space is divided into several environments. The city section shows different types of birds' nests, including some particularly impressive pieces of work like the one with a woven tube meant to keep predators out.

Two mated pairs of monk parakeets chirp loudly from their enclosure. While they're not native to North America, the large brightly colored birds have been living in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood for decades, building elaborate nests around telephone poles as a way to stay warm during the winter.

“Our visitors really respond to our live animals and as much as we can, we try to incorporate them,” Ramos said.

Parakeets are just one of many species at home in the exhibit. Visitors can see more than 10,000 bees crawling around in a honeycomb and a second case will be running when the weather is warmer.

There are also ants busy at work picking up food, investigating their environment and carrying away refuse including dead ants. Orb spiders work on their webs and a tank shows caddis flies, which make cases using sand, stone and silk to camouflage with their surroundings.

When the weather is warm enough to collect them, the museum will add paper wasps. One display will show the insects in a complete nest made out of leaves, while in another visitors will be able to watch them build a multicolored home out of construction paper.

The exhibit also includes trap door spiders, though they're not particularly visible since they like to burrow in dirt to wait for prey.

“We always have to try to create a balance between visibility and accessibility for the visitor and having the animals thrive,” said Celeste Troon, director of living collections. “It's difficult, but it's worth it.”

The exhibit transitions into woodlands with dioramas showing beavers constructing elaborate lodges and dams, and there is a video of beavers at work during different seasons.

A section on prairie shows how important prairie dog tunnels are for aerating and fertilizing the soil like earthworms, but on a larger scale. Farmers have killed many of the animals because their livestock were getting hurt by the animals' holes, but prairie dogs are now being repopulated.

Kids can crawl through a big model of a prairie dog tunnel and make noises from the barking room that can be heard throughout the tunnel system the same way a prairie dog might warn of threats like a dog or a hawk.

Other interactives include a big box of dirt visitors can pull to get a feel for how much an aardvark can dig. Kids can also put their hands in bird puppets and try weaving cut strips of reeds to give a new appreciation of the elaborate structures birds make with their beaks.

The center of the exhibit features a massive replica of a termite mound that stretches up to the ceiling. Embedded screens display videos of the tiny, blind insects at work. Built with dirt, debris and excrement, a termite mound is lined with holes that act as a ventilation system and can be opened or closed to regulate temperature.

A section on human buildings based on nature shows how the termites' tactics were used for the ventilation system of the Eastgate Centre in Zimbabwe, one of the greenest buildings on the planet.

“This is an example of how we can incorporate these natural processes to make our systems not only easier to maintain but sustainable,” Ramos said.

“Nature's Architects”

<b>Where: </b>Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, 2430 N. Cannon Drive, Chicago, (773) 755-5100, chias.org

<b>Hours: </B>9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday through Sept. 12

<b>Admission: </b>$9, $7 seniors and students, $6 kids ages 3 to 12; free Thursdays