The Tucson Children's Museum's bugs have invaded Park Mall!

Actually, the museum's exhibit, entitled "BIG, BIG BUGS," is showing at Park Mall, 5870 E. Broadway Blvd. It is presented by the museum and sponsored in part by the mall and television station KVOA, channel 4.

The museum chose bugs over last year's exhibit of dinosaurs to provide a variety to the children, said Kathy Blitt, assistant director of the Tucson Children's Museum.

Children love bugs and are very interested and collecting them. "Even the girls are interested," Blitt said.

The exhibit offers such features as "parasites on parade," a showcase of how ticks, fleas and head lice live and eat, with a demonstration at the end. Also shown are giant, robotic insects, such as an 11-foot-long locust with a 22-foot wing span.

Along with the robotic insects, the exhibit is supplemented with live animals in aquariums, craft tables, presentations and face painting of bugs and insects.

Some of the presentations are done by the Department of Entomology at the University of Arizona, Blitt said.

This is the second consecutive year the museum has had this type of exhibit.

Blitt said the museum's board of directors is deciding whether or not to have next year's exhibit at the museum, or keep it a "traveling exhibit."

Last year, dinosaurs were the attraction and it was geared toward children. But chill! This year's attraction is geared toward everyone.

Blitt says the crowd includes children and adults without children who have a curiosity about insects and bugs.

The exhibit's goal is to provide education on the life, functions and knowledge of bugs, with the fun topic and "process of a good time" as the foreground to the hidden message of education.

The "BIG, BIG BUGS" exhibit is on display until Sept. 2, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. The cost is $3 per person. For details, call the Tucson Children's Museum at 792-9985.