Photos: Tasty Termites, Delicious Dragonflies, and 13 Other Edible Insects

What tastes like peanut butter? Or soft-shell crab? Or cinnamon? Why, grubs, scorpions, and stinkbugs, of course. Find out why insects are just another food group in most parts of the world.

  1. Cicada aficionados boil or fry them up like shrimp.

  2. Tarantulas are eaten whole—gooey center and all—as street food in Cambodia.

    (AFP/Getty Images)
  3. A palm weevil larva tastes like coconut when it's eaten raw or bacon when it's cooked.

    (Courtesy liyin/Flickr)
  4. Red ants and their eggs are consumed in salads in Thailand.

    (Stephen Ford/Alamy)
  5. Termites taste like carrots when they're roasted over hot coals or fried in oil.

    (Miguel Cuenca/Alamy)
  6. Roasted and tossed with chile and lime, crunchy grasshoppers sit in piles at street stands in Oaxaca, Mexico.

    (age fotostock/SuperStock)
  7. In Japan, wasp larvae are cooked in soy sauce and sugar, and eaten as a crunchy snack.

    (Courtesy Apple2000/Wikimedia Commons)
  8. After green slime is squeezed from its gut, the mopane worm is dried or smoked and served with sauce.

  9. These giant dragonflies, found in Indonesia, taste similar to soft-shell crab.

    (Courtesy feffi/Flickr)
  10. Ant eggs are often presented with a side of tortillas for the popular Mexican dish escamoles.

    (AFP/Getty Images)
  11. The silkworm itself is an edible byproduct of the silk industry, as manufacturers only use the bugs' cocoons to make the cloth.

    (Stephen Rudolph/Dreamstime.com)
  12. Scorpions are scooped up alive and wriggling, skewered on a kebab, and deep-fried in oil.

    (Courtesy Tomchen1989/Wikimedia Commons)
  13. In Mexico, stinkbugs are ground up with chiles for taco filling.

    (AFP/Getty Images)
  14. These massive waterbugs are commonly found in Bangkok street stalls.

    (Courtesy Takoradee/Wikimedia Commons)
  15. Huhu grubs are often eaten raw—and they taste like peanut butter!

    (Courtesy schlott/Wikimedia Commons)

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