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Insects in my apartment is a bad thing; however, insects in a museum is a thing of beauty, and the largest museum for insects in the United States may be found in Philadelphia, Pennyslvania, known as the Insectarium . Here, you’ll find a kitchen swarming with cockroaches. The good news is that it’s not your kitchen and the cockroaches, while uncovered, are kept in place by two electric barriers. The museum began in 1992 by Steve Kanya of Steve’s Bug-off Exterminating Company. The museum began small, as a way to display the extermination company’s best weekly catch, which was then displayed in a fish tank in a window. The display proved popular, and Steve turned the top two floors of his building, an old firehouse, into an insect museum.

On the second floor, displays meant to educate you about the insect world are in place. There’s thousands of dead insects pinned inside show boxes. The floor also contains a fully functioning beehive and a live scorpion in a box, which glows in the dark (actually, all scorpions will glow under a black light; in Arizona, where scorpions are abundant, you’ll find “scorpion finding” black light flashlights at some of the convenience stores). The Model Roach Kitchen is a featured attraction, with a sink and counter-tops and cabinets inside plexiglass walls of about five feet in height. It’s here where you’ll be offered the chance to eat beetle larvae with cheddar cheese flavoring.

On the third floor, there’s live exhibits: tarantulas, beetles, stinkbugs, centipedes. Black Widow spiders and bird-eating spiders from Ecuador. You’ll even find a table where you might pet the creatures. You can actually stroke the back of a Madagascar hissing cockroach and a whip-tail scorpion; although, the name alone, whip-tail, might give you pause.

Philadelphia has a number of attractions for any visitor, such as Independence Hall, the Philadelphia Museum of Art , the Liberty Bell Center, there’s nothing like an Insectarium to make you return to a clean, comfortable room and have a nice warm shower. If you didn’t book a room before your visit, you can do so now at this website .