Sounds of Insects – Orchestra of the Smallest

Sounds of Insects – Orchestra of the Smallest

Exhibition: Sounds of Insects – Orchestra of the Smallest
Thursday, 26 April
City Museum of Nova Gradiška

As you walk through the exhibition, you will be accompanied by the sounds of nature that some of you may remember from childhood, but which today can only be heard in clean, untouched natural environments.

The first room of the sound exhibition presents the diversity of singing insects and basic information about the ways insects produce and perceive sound. This is followed by a corridor where visitors are greeted by a model of the industrious ant, showing the structures it uses to produce sound. Similar structures are displayed on models of the shy weevil, the elusive mole cricket, and the combative praying mantis in the next room.

The exhibition concludes with the diligent singers whose songs remind many of us of summer. The best known among them is the tireless field cricket, accompanied by the mighty oak longhorn beetle. In this unusual choir, however, the loudest and most bizarre performer is the perverse and lustful water bug, which sings—with its penis!

Exhibition credits:

Concept author: Dr. Iva Mihoci
Exhibition authors: Dr. Iva Mihoci, Petar Crnčan
Scientific collaborators: Dr. Vlatka Mičetić Stanković, Dr. Martina Šašić Kljajo
Exhibition design: Mario Galov
Graphic design: Andrea Franić for MihociStudios Ltd.
Sound design and soundscape: composer Boštjan Perovšek
Insect models: academic sculptor Denis Krašković
Robotic insect models: academic sculptor Denis Krašković, Branimir Tadić
Photography: David Mihoci, Ena Mihoci
Illustrations: Franka Tretinjak
Visual printing: PrintGrupa Ltd.
Exhibition marketing and PR: Nenad Jandrić, Martin Glavinić

We would like to thank Academician Prof. Dr. Matija Gogala of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Dr. Tomi Trilar of the Slovenian Museum of Natural History, Prof. Dr. Jérôme Sueur of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, and Prof. Dr. Fanny Rybak of Université Paris-Sud, Orsay, Paris, for providing original recordings of various insect species.

We also thank Prof. Dr. Boris Hrašovec and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Milivoj Franjević of the Faculty of Forestry, University of Zagreb, for lending selected prepared insect specimens.

Our thanks also go to Croatian Radiotelevision for providing the Bajsić Studio for photographing the exhibition scenes, and to the Zagreb City Museum for lending lighting equipment.

The exhibition was financially supported by the City Office for Education, Culture and Sport of the City of Zagreb and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia.

Croatian Natural History Museum
Zagreb, December 2016 – July 2017