Insects sing for exhibition visitors
A woman stands in front of a giant picture of an insect.
People can leave notes and take part in some interactive activities after they visit the exhibition.
An immersive experience for visitors to feel like they are in the natural world surrounded by singing insects.
An exhibition allowing city residents to get close to singing insects opened on Friday at the Shanghai Natural History Museum.
The exhibition, running through October 30, is a warm-up event for the weeklong Shanghai International Natural Convention Festival that starts on Saturday.
It is based on a museum project that encourages people to record singing insects in parks or the countryside and share the recordings for scientific research through a WeChat program called Tingyouchong.
The program, initiated in August, has more than 3,100 registered users and has collected more than 2,000 audio clips from 20 cities and regions across the country. It has helped scientists build a sound spectrum database of singing insects.
The high-pitched songs of crickets, cicadas and grasshoppers, among other insects recorded by people over two months, can be heard at the exhibition, along with photographs of the insects and the organs responsible for making the sounds.
A highlight of the exhibition is “Mr Cricket’s 8pm,” an “immersive theater” experience featuring 3D audio and visual effects where people can walk in the wild in summer, feeling crickets crawling over their feet while listening to an insect "orchestra."
Yu Yiming, organizer of the exhibition, said most singing insects are male. At 8pm, people are off work and about to rest, but insects are just starting to sing.
