Saturday, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences hosted its 18th BugFest, an annual event that attracts more than 30,000 visitors each year and offers guests the opportunity to admire, interact and even taste a variety of insects. 

Sonia Su, a sophomore in food science, was among those brave enough to sample the buggy dishes featured at the museum’s Café Insecta. 

“The [bugs] tasted crunchy and you could feel the cricket legs in your throat,” Su said. “My favorite part of BugFest was eating crickets and meal worms and watching the rest of my group eat them too, at least the ones that dared to.” 

Café Insecta offered a variety of bug dishes from ice cream, pistachio brittle, fried rice and even grits. 

In addition to these taboo dishes, there were more than 100 insect exhibits, displays and activities for guests to explore. 

NC State students and staff were also involved at BugFest. The Department of Entomology, the College of Veterinary Medicine, NCSU Libraries, and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering all hosted displays dedicated to a variety of bugs and insect activities. 

On Saturday, all four stories of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences were dedicated to BugFest and the research center of the museum had insects on display for guests to admire. 

 Roads surrounding the museum featured a carnival as well as informational displays to teach visitors about bugs. 

“They had lots of little tables spread out throughout the museum that had insects and bugs you could look at and some you could even hold,” Su said. 

This year, BugFest’s theme was stink bugs. 

Su said BugFest’s attendees were of all ages, with lots of college students from universities nearby participating in the day’s activities.

“There were more families and kids, in my opinion, but there were quite a few college students too.”