It is fun to check out bugs... even when they are dead!Once a year - right at the winter break weekend - Texas A&M holds the insect open house for public viewing. This is the 21st consecutive annual meeting. Every year, the event attracts a diverse group of people -professional and amateur - with a broad range of interests. The event was held in January 10th 2009. This year my son Kenneth, Dustin, and I decided to take a 70-minute drive to College Station for the open house. It was windy and cold just like last year, but that does not stop us at all from going forward.
We arrived early at around 10 AM. It appears that we have less attendance this year but the collection are pretty much the same. I have a chance to meet up with my other bug friend David too apparently he was a little late this time. There was a free breakfast section but we skipped it as we had ours earlier and are definitely more interested in the bugs than fruits and donuts. My interest has always been on Mantodea section so I went straight up that cabinet storing trays of different mantids species from around the world. I also have a chance to take some macro shots with my new camera. It was awsome! After couple of hour we decided to take care of our stomach and went for a BBQ grill restaurant nearby. Later we went back and realized we had our lunch too soon as the entire group was just about ready to leave for lunch. We took a group photo and they went on with lunch. Now we have the entire building just for ourselves!
We spent more time viewing collection of other insects like beetles, butterflies, moths, ants, etc which were stored in trays while some other insects like centipedes, scorpians, tarantulas, milipedes, etc were kept in bottles with preservatives (alcohol). We had lot of fun going through each specimen checking out some cool bugs. Finally at around 3 PM we decided to hit the road going back home. Eventhough all the bugs were dead, it was still educational and kept in pretty good condition. Barvo to the curator in TAMU!!
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