By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
A new summer exhibit, “World of Giant Insects,” at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Hays will allow visitors to experience insects in ways they never have before.
Set in realistic habitats, animatronics insects will tower over people at 40 to 100 time their size in life. The blown-up examples will allow visitors to see intricate details of the insects’ anatomy that can’t be seen with the naked eye.
Among these displays will be male atlas beetles with their long horns that they use to battle each other for dominance, territory and mates.
“You will get to learn some about their behaviors,” Reese Barrick, museum director, said of the insects. “It is so bizarre. It is so weird. We don’t think about how does an insect smell, how does an insect hear, how does it make noise. People don’t think about how the insect world works.”
The Insect exhibits opened Saturday and will remain in Hays through Labor Day. The exhibit is included in regular admission to the museum. The museum is open seven days a week during the summer. See the Sternberg online for details on hours and admission.
“Insects have been here for 100s of millions of years,” Barrick said, “so there is a little bit of the depth of how long insects have been here and insect diversity. Insects are the most diverse animals on the planet.”
Science does not know how many species of insects live on Earth. New species are constantly being discovered even in our own backyard. A new bristletail species, which are also known as silverfish, was found five years ago on the Fort Hays State University campus, Barrick said.
“Bristletails are one of the old insects on the planet, yet there are new species of them being found now,” he said.
People often think of insects, such as ticks or mosquitoes as pests, but there is a great number of insects that are beneficial to agriculture and humans. An example of this is bees.
“The world would be completely out of fruit and vegetables if there were not honeybees or bees in general as pollinators,” Barrick said. “The whole world changed when insect diversity increased to a point and plants started to have flowers. Now plants are dependent on insects, bees specifically, to pollinate them. Without bees, there would be so much food we would not have as humans.
“Any type of bee crisis is a crisis for agriculture. That is something we are experiencing right now.”
Other insects that will be featured in the exhibit include stick bugs, praying mantises, swallowtail butterfly caterpillars and locusts.
“A lot of people, I think, are afraid of insects because they are creepy crawlies,” Darrah Steffen, Sternberg public relations assistant, said. “They can learn they are really beneficial and these insects are really cool creatures.”
Large closeup photos of a variety of insects and insect imposters, such as spiders, will allow visitors to see insects in detail. The exhibit also will have a section called “The Zoo,” which will include live insects in terrariums.
“With the butterfly, [visitors] will learn about the metamorphosis they go through,” Steffen said. “The caterpillar has to eat so much to go into the pupa or chrysalis and completely dissolves and becomes that butterfly. [The exhibit will describe] how that transformation happens.”
Barrick said now is the perfect time to experience this exhibit because it relates directly back to what is happening in our environment.
“We are heading into insect season here in Kansas,” he said. “People can go into their backyards. They can go out on our nature trail. They can go hiking anywhere, and they will have a little better understanding of what they will be able to see and be aware of after coming to our exhibit.”
The Sternberg has a number of other activities scheduled for this summer including summer camps for children, a summer science day in July, a murder mystery party for adults on Aug. 4, family shark tooth hunt on June 16 and a teacher STEM workshop.
Information on the teacher workshop and the summer camps are available on the website now. Look for details on the other events coming soon.