The ant exhibition at Korea's National Institute of Ecology

At the National Institute of Ecology in Seocheon, on the west coast about three hours from Seoul, one exhibition asks you to do something rather than look at something. It is called Ant World Exploration, subtitled 'a journey to the ant science base', and it sits in the special exhibition hall of the Ecorium. The institute built it to share the process and findings of its research into the behavioural ecology of social insects, and it holds live ant colonies from Korea and abroad at close range. A 30-minute guided session runs alongside it year-round, which changes the visit considerably if you can get a place.

What makes the ant science base different

By the institute's own description, the exhibition departs from ordinary display and maps the working process of ant scientists directly onto the visitor route. You collect a lab coat at the information desk by the entrance, follow a set path through the exercises, and finish by writing up the results of that simulated fieldwork as a report and presenting it. Pushing the visit all the way through to recording and organising what you observed is what makes it worth the trip with a child: the visit does not end with a lap of the hall.

Which ants are on display

The line-up the institute records on its exhibition page is ten species: seven ants native to Korea, one termite, and two from abroad — the weaver ant and the leafcutter ant. Of the native species, the ones named are the Japanese carpenter ant, the spiny ant and a shining fire ant. The mix has changed since the opening: in 2015 the exhibition opened with eight native ant species, one termite and two wasps, and brought the foreign species in later.

• Leafcutter ant — a tropical Central and South American ant that cultivates an edible fungus on the leaf fragments it cuts and carries home. It is the headline species the institute imported from abroad.
• Weaver ant — known for a cooperative behaviour in which several ants hold leaves together while silk produced by the larvae binds them into a nest.
• Japanese carpenter ant, spiny ant and shining fire ant — the species the institute chose to represent ants native to Korea.

What happens if the foreign ants get out

Hearing that a Korean institution keeps foreign ants naturally raises the question of invasive species, and the institute answered it directly at the opening briefing. Its account was that the species were chosen in the first place from tropical ants that could not survive in the Korean climate; that the housing was built with escape-prevention measures matched to the quarantine authority's requirements; and that colonies are managed separately, unit by unit. Staff were also sent abroad to be trained at comparable facilities before the exhibition opened.

The core of the argument is reproductive. Worker ants cannot reproduce, so however many get out they produce no next generation; establishment would require a queen surviving outside, and the queens of tropical species cannot get through a Korean winter. That was the reasoning Choe Jae-chun, then the institute's director and one of Korea's best-known ant researchers, used to satisfy the quarantine authority — arguing that even thirty thousand escaped workers could not repeat what the bullfrog did to Korean waterways.

How to book the guided session

A 30-minute session with an eco-guide is attached to the exhibition. On the institute's eco-guide timetable this programme is listed as running year-round, and in practice sessions are released a month at a time through the booking system. The September 2026 round gives the shape of it.

1. Open the eco-guide section of the institute's reservation service and pick a date. Online booking is the primary route and closes two days before the day of the visit.
2. A booking is only confirmed once an administrator sends an approval message by KakaoTalk. If a confirmation call cannot be connected after several attempts, the booking may be cancelled and the place released.
3. If places remain unbooked online, walk-up registration is taken at the Eco-guide Q&A desk inside the Ecorium — though it may not run depending on conditions on the day.

Prices and opening hours

Ant World Exploration is inside the Ecorium, so an admission ticket is all you need to walk into it. At the opening briefing the institute stated plainly that the ant science base itself is free and that visitors pay only the institute's admission, and there is still no separate charge listed anywhere on the eco-guide pages or in the booking system. Admission is KRW 5,000 for adults, KRW 3,000 for teenagers and KRW 2,000 for children, and is free if you are 4 or under, 65 or over, disabled or a person of national merit. The ticket office takes cards only. The institute opens from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm with ticket sales stopping at 4:30 pm, and closes on Mondays. Since the last guided session starts at 3 pm, plan to arrive before then.

Getting there, and what needs Korean

The institute sits next to Janghang Station (장항역) on the Janghang line: it is about a five-minute walk from the station to the west ticket gate, which makes the train far easier than it looks on a map. From Incheon Airport, take the airport rail link or a bus into Seoul, then a Janghang line train from Yongsan — around four hours in total, so treat Seocheon as an overnight stop rather than a day trip. Local bus 72 runs from the Seocheon and Gunsan intercity bus terminals, and there is parking for around a thousand vehicles if you drive. On language: the exhibition works without Korean, because it is built on objects, live colonies and a route you physically follow, but the panel text is Korean and the guided session is conducted in Korean. Booking that session is the real obstacle — the reservation site is Korean-only and confirmation arrives as a KakaoTalk message, which in practice assumes a Korean phone number. If you want a guide in English, the institute runs a separate foreign-language eco-guide on Saturdays covering the five climate-zone halls, in English in the first and third weeks of the month; it does not cover the ant exhibition, but it is the English-language option on site. The Ecorium is indoors from end to end, which also makes this a dependable wet-weather day.