The Houston Zoo has an exhibit that I absolutely will not be seeing, entitled “Extreme Bugs!” The exhibit will apparently include this giant spider, from a picture posted to the zoo’s Facebook page:

The exhibit opens Memorial Day weekend, so you have a few weeks to plan a trip to Houston or get the hell off of this planet, whichever suits your fancy.

Aside from the years of nightmares that picture alone is likely to cause, something else jumped out at me about this exhibit. I noticed the following on the zoo’s website:

Yes, not only does the bombardier beetle have corporate sponsorship, it has it from über-big law firm Vinson & Elkins. That’s either extremely appropriate or highly inappropriate, I guess depending on how you view lawyers. See, bombardier beetles are pretty nasty little fellows, known for their distinctive form of defense: “when disturbed, they eject a hot noxious chemical spray from the tip of their abdomen, with a popping sound.” Observe:

(This has made the bombardier beetle a favorite of creationists shilling for “irreducible complexity” ideas, but I’ll let the National Center for Science Education take that one.)

The Houston Zoo will have a giant replica of a beetle that noisily spews noxious chemicals at its enemies (and from its butt), sponsored by a giant law firm. (Totally unrelated, but V&E was Enron‘s law firm. Just sayin’.) I also see that the power company is sponsoring a giant firefly, which is kind of cute.

Good luck with the bugs, Houston. I’ll be somewhere else.

Photo credit: © 2014, The Dinosaur Company, via Facebook.