Paper Mache Beetle

 

I made this as a piece of wall art for my new apartment!  It's done with a cardboard and newspaper base and covered in paper mache.  I painted it with acrylic paints.  It's pretty big, see the light switch in lower left hand corner for scale!

 



I feel like a scientist...

Pests are a huge problem for a museum and employees are encouraged to be ever vigilant to keep an eye out for potential problems.  That was the case a couple weeks ago when Brian Brown, the Entomology curator, sent out an email to keep everyone on the lookout for a pest that keeps popping up, the Stout's Hardwood Borer.  As the name suggests, it is a beetle that has an affinity for eating up hardwoods such as oak, maple and eucalyptus and can cause a lot of structural damage as well as damaging artifacts.  Anyway, I took the email as an interesting anecdote to my job at a museum, but I didn't think I'd actually find one.

Photo Brian Brown sent out

But I did!!!  I spotted it on my way to lunch hanging out above the doorway to a stairwell.  I got really excited and started to panic (as I am wont to do when I'm excited).  I really wanted to capture it alive and give it to the Entomology people, but just as I grabbed a cup to capture it, someone tried to smash it!  Yes, it is a pest; yes, it should die, but it should be kept whole so it is easier to identify!  Luckily, the ham-fisted, would-be smasher missed and I caught it and promptly gave it to Giar-Ann Kung, Entomology Curatorial Assistant.

My little insect!

I thought that was that until Giar-Ann sent me a photo of my little Stout's Hardwood Borer all pretty and pinned in the Entomology collection!  It even has my name on it!  So. Proud.

Bees - My Totem

Honey Bees.  I really love honey bees.  If I were to have some sort of spirit animal or witch’s familiar I’m pretty sure it would be a honey bee.  Why?  I love how they all work cooperatively and so hard for their community, I love their symbiotic relationship with flowers, I love how beautiful they are, I love them as symbols of fertility, I love honey, I love how most of the hive is female, I love the hexagonal honeycomb, I love their translucent wings, I love how intent and focused they are on their task of collecting nectar and pollen, I love the sound they make, I love how they are producers of their own food and make wax.  I think they’re great.

Butterflies Get All the Glory

Look at these beautiful moths! 

Regal Walnut Moth - Source

White Moth - Source

Pink Star Moth - Source

I prefer moths over butterflies. There is a delicate subtle beauty to them, like they belong more in nature than butterflies do... I think I feel that way because their colors are more nature colored and their habits seem more reasonable for nature -- quite unlike butterflies with their daytime gallivanting, irreverently flashing around their unnatural hues!



Wavy-lined Heterocampa - Source

Moths also beat out butterflies in the cuddle-factor department.  Their modified scales give them a cute furry apperance... just look at them!  They're almost like flying hamsters!  Last I checked, hamsters are generally more cuddly than arthropods (which I love too!  Just not for cuddling.)

Flannel Moth - Source