It’s time for roach squishers and mosquito swatters to take a day off: this Saturday is Bugfest, an event at which the creepy, the crawly and the icky are celebrated, embraced and even eaten.
An annual event at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Bugfest showcases all things arthropod through a series of demonstrations, exhibits, shows and activities running from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Arthropod is the official scientific name for what we usually call “bugs” — animals that have no bones, but are crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. This includes shrimp, spiders, insects, millipedes, and so on.
This year’s list of attractions includes perennial favorites, like the CafŽ Insecta, a restaurant that opens just for Bugfest and offers a three course menu featuring delicacies like antchiladas and stir-fried Cantonese crickets over rice — free for the taking.
All four floors of the museum and an outdoor plaza will be packed with 80 displays where visitors can race cockroaches, learn about butterfly gardening and hold live exotic insects provided by the University and Carolina Biological Supply. The bee-bearded lady will be back, the Alberti Flea Circus will make its first Bugfest appearance and Bill Connor, professor of biology at Wake Forest University, will lecture on a dazzling arms race between moths and the bats that eat them.
“People often think of this as a childrens’ event,” Bob Flook, Coordinator of Educational Events at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, said. “And it is, but there’s also an awful lot at Bugfest for any adult or teen who has a casual interest in bugs, or is looking for hard scientific information or even a career.”
Those working behind the scenes get a different Bugfest experience. Chad Gore, a postdoctoral research associate in entomology, has organized the Roachville display for six years, since he came to the department as a doctoral student.
Roachville changes a little bit every year, but it always features terrariums full of exotic live cockroaches, the opportunity to hold a giant Madagascar hissing roach and microscopes for examining roach anatomy up close. Each year, Gore organizes a team of several students and researchers to prepare the exhibit weeks in advance and then to put in several hours setting up, manning and breaking down the display on the day of Bugfest.
“It’s a lot of worry and chaos getting everything together,” Gore said. “But then the day of the event makes everything worth it. I like the kids who get so excited about the roaches, when they come up to me and start reciting roach facts. And then it’s great when a cockroach will make a grown man scream.”
This year’s Bugfest promises to fascinate, entertain and disgust with its long and varied program, and Flook encourages even Bugfest veterans to check out this year’s exciting new exhibits.
“After all, who could get tired of food with bugs in it?” Gore asked.
