#  Arthropods: Creatures That Rule 

 



       ![arthropods_1.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum4986/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/hmnh/files/arthropods_1.jpg?itok=qRSpARQW) 

 

 



 

 



 

Featuring hands-on activities, dramatic specimen displays, colorful video and graphics, and even live animals, this exhibition draws on the latest scientific research to explore arthropods’ extraordinary evolutionary success and their impact on our lives. Evolving for more than 500 million years, these creatures range in size from giant king crabs to microscopic mites, represent over eighty percent of all animal species, and have colonized every corner of the planet.

## **Making the Invisible Visible: Digitizing Invertebrates on Microscope Slides**

[*Making the Invisible Visible: Digitizing Invertebrates on Microscope Slides*](https://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/making-invisible-visible-digitizing-invertebrates-microscope-slides) showcases the Museum of Comparative Zoology’s collections of glass microscope slides. The data will be made available to the public, allowing researchers across the globe to learn from Harvard’s collections.

## **Velvet Worms: A Fierce Hunter with a Secret Weapon**

[*Velvet Worms: A Fierce Hunter with a Secret Weapon*](/velvet-worms-fierce-hunter-secret-weapon "Velvet Worms: A Fierce Hunter with a Secret Weapon") is a smaller-scale exhibit in the Arthropods Gallery that shines a light on this little-known creature in a category of its own. Velvet worms are not worms—or caterpillars. They are the closest relative to arthropods, and they have remained largely unchanged for 300 million years.

## **Ants and Termites: Nature’s Super Organisms**

[*Ants and Termites: Nature’s Super Organisms*](/ants-and-termites-natures-super-organisms "Ants and Termites: Nature’s Super Organisms") is a small exhibit in the Arthropods gallery that explores these ancient, diverse, and ubiquitous insect groups, inhabiting all of Earth’s continents, save Antarctica, and living in sometimes massive colonies that are among the most interesting and complex societies in the animal kingdom.

## **The Rockefeller Beetles**

[*The Rockefeller Beetles*](/rockefeller-beetles "The Rockefeller Beetles") is a small exhibit in the Arthropods gallery that features hundreds of specimens from David Rockefeller’s collection and recounts the story of a man whose childhood pursuit grew into a lifelong passion.

## **What's in a Name?**

This station of the *What's in a Name?* onsite exhibit includes an interactive kiosk about honeybees. Learn more on the [*What's in a Name?*](http://whatsinaname.hmnh.harvard.edu/) website and download the [free e-book](http://whatsinaname.hmnh.harvard.edu/e-book).



 



 

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