NOLA’s Audubon Aquarium and Insectarium ready to reopen after lengthy renovations

The Audubon Aquarium and Insectarium in New Orleans are set to open to the public on Thursday after a long absence because of renovations and pandemic-induced closings.

We were given early access to the newly renovated, $41 million project that combined the insectarium with the aquarium on Canal Street along the Mississippi River.

Public relations specialist Melissa Lee used her 20-plus years of experience at the aquarium — she’ll tell you she started at 4 years old — to guide us through what visitors will get to experience for the first time when the building opens to the public.

The journey took us through the world of beetles, bees and sharks, interactive exhibits and conversations with entomologists and other experts around the building.

Here’s everything we saw.

The bugs are back

The remodeled riverside entrance greeted us with a new living wall made up of hundreds of plants sustained by a hydroponic system designed by a Disney horticulturalist.

From there, the first thing we explored was the relocated insectarium. Originally built in 2008 within the walls of the Federal Customs House just down the road, the insectarium was forced to shut down in 2020 by the onset of the pandemic.

Three years later, the bugs are back.

The first thing you meet is a digital butterfly and firefly wall that reacts to guests who walk up to it. The monarchs and lightning bugs congregate around those who approach as a warm greeting to the insect house.

From there, we traveled through exhibits displaying beetles and bugs from Madagascar to the Bayou. Around every corner are entomologists ready to share their knowledge about the crawling creatures we often overlook in our daily lives.

My personal favorites were the bioluminescent beetles with false eyes that glow bright green in the dark as a defense mechanism.

The Insectarium also features a unique stopping point for those feeling peckish as they travel through. Bug Appetit is a small cafe stand and natural resting point offering up the latest in bug snacks.

Not snacks that look like bugs, bug snacks. Snacks made of bugs. Real bugs. In your snacks.

I indulged in a chocolate chip cricket cookie with a dehydrated cricket baked into it. It tasted like a cookie with a nutty crunch. I will be taking no further questions on that matter.

Along with the cookies, which are dubbed the “gateway snack,” they also had tortilla chips with three different dips, including spiced apple chutney with waxworms.

I passed on the worms.

Swamps and rainforests

Once we were refueled by the grylloideas, it was time for the aquarium.

The aquarium was first opened in 1990 and had not undergone a major renovation until now. The site was closed to the public in November to revamp nearly every exhibit.

A tank of jellyfish greets you just before stepping into an updated bayou swamp walk-through with an alligator whose sibling resides at the Audubon Zoo.

From there you get to visit a brand new vantage point of the aquarium’s biggest exhibit. Lee told us the number one thing visitors ask for is a view of the sea life that guests typically aren’t given.

Now, visitors have a unique top-down view of the 450,000-gallon tank modeled as the sea floor around an offshore oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

The exhibit is packed with massive tarpons, sand tigers sharks and nurse sharks. The tank is pumped with artificial salt water and equipped with a lighting feature that reflects the time of day, gradually altering the color of the water from deepwater blue to twilight green.

The next major exhibit received a significant makeover. The humid Amazon Rainforest was replanted with fauna that matches the natural ecosystem of the South American jungle. Among the new greenery are coffee trees and fruit-bearing trees that 60-plus free-flying birds actually feed on within the exhibit.

One particular plant Lee pointed out to us was the ultra-rare Zamoran Blueberry. The only known natural habitat of the plant is in a single village in Ecuador. The aquarium has the only Zamoran Blueberry found anywhere in the United States.

Attached to the exhibit and expected to open soon is the Amazonian Aviary, which will feature a large variety of birds and an enclosure for the two-toed sloth.

On the other side of the Mayan Tunnel is another natural rest point with a small snack store stocked with non-bug related snacks.

This area also has a brand new virtual reality experience that allows guests to get an up close look at sea life.

For those hoping to visit the new and improved facility in its entirety can do so with combo tickets that cost $50 per adult and $45 per child. Individual tickets for just the aquarium or insectarium are $35 for adults and $30 for children.

The building will eventually house a food court, too, but for now is serviced by food trucks just outside the building.