Zack
Lemann.
Bug expert, bug chef, and the patient New Orleanian who has spent the better part of three decades introducing the squeamish to the six-legged.
The curator
For nearly thirty years, Zack Lemann has been the face — and the steady hands — behind the live insect collection at the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium in New Orleans.
As Curator of Animal Collections for the Audubon Nature Institute, he keeps watch over thousands of arthropods, from the leafcutter ant colonies farming their fungus gardens to the atlas moths emerging, briefly and beautifully, from their cocoons.
His work straddles two rare worlds. In one, he is a careful keeper — quarantining new arrivals, feeding mantids, and making sure the Insectarium's living exhibits look effortless. In the other, he is a performer: a calm, funny, deeply patient guide who has spent more time than almost anyone alive convincing the public that insects are worth paying attention to.
He is also, famously, a chef. Bug Appétit — the on-site kitchen he helped create — serves chocolate "chirp" cookies, cinnamon-bug bites, waxworm rice crispy treats, and the occasional dragonfly. Visitors arrive horrified and leave, more often than not, asking for the recipe.
Gallery VI
A working life with insects.
Four chapters from a career spent in the quiet rooms behind the glass — where the real Insectarium lives.
- 01
1990s
Begins at Audubon
Joins the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans, working with the live insect collection that would eventually anchor the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium.
- 02
2008
Insectarium opens
Helps launch one of North America's largest museums devoted to insects — a 23,000-square-foot home for thousands of specimens and hundreds of live species.
- 03
Ongoing
Curator of Animal Collections
Oversees the husbandry, acquisition, and exhibition of the Insectarium's living arthropods — from leafcutter ants to atlas moths.
- 04
Always
Bug Appétit
Founds and runs the famed edible-insect kitchen — chocolate 'chirp' cookies, cricket king cake, and waxworm rice crispy treats served to wary, then converted, guests.
In his own words
"If you can get someone to laugh while they're holding a hissing cockroach, you've already taught them something."
Lemann's whole approach rests on a quiet bet: that wonder beats fear every time, provided someone is patient enough to make the introduction. The Insectarium is full of those introductions. So is this site.
Field card
The short version.
- Born
- New Orleans, Louisiana
- Title
- Curator of Animal Collections, Audubon Nature Institute
- Specialty
- Live insect husbandry · Public entomology · Edible insects
- Best known for
- Bug Appétit, the bug-tasting kitchen at the Insectarium
- Frequent collaborators
- Loyola University · WWNO · NPR · Audubon educators