They may be tiny, but they're hiding super powers.
Melbourne Museum's newest exhibition uses ultra-detailed, large-scale models to lead visitors to explore the amazing world of insects.
Bug Lab: Little Bugs, Super Power is a collaboration between the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and Weta Workshop, better known for costumes and effects in The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit trilogies.
Melbourne is the first museum to host the exhibition after its premiere last year in Wellington.
The exhibition features six large-scale models and uncovers the adaptive genius of bugs, which over millions of years have evolved to have superpower abilities including camouflage, mind control, super speed, swarm intelligence and deadly venom.
Museum visitors will explore through four immersive chambers, with experiences to test their reflexes and practise bug "brain surgery".
Bug Lab also highlights how insects have inspired technologies like fly-like collision-tolerant drones, nanotechnology based on butterfly wings, and 3D-printed objects created from silk.
Visitors to Melbourne Museum had a taste of the exhibition on Sunday with a preview of a Japanese honeybee model and wandering human-sized bug "ambassadors", which will wander the city to promote the show.
Melbourne Museum manager Gordon White said 150,000 people were expected to visit the exhibition over four months.
Bug Lab: Little Bugs, Super Powers will open on June 23.