Insect Fair, Part I

At long last, the Insect Fair. Fun for the whole family.

Thank god it was a nice day because if it had been raining and all of the kids and the band and the bees were inside at the same time, I would have turned around and left right here.



There was a folksy band that played exciting bug songs. Here's a very short clip.






This was the beginning of the many Harry Potter references that the Insect Fair used shamelessly to appear 'hip'. You're not hip. You're entomologists.








Ah! West Nile Virus! Run! They bred mosquitoes in a jar to show us what they looked like. I asked what was going to happen to them after the Fair, and the guy sitting at the booth said that they were just going to be dumped on the ground outside. Murder.


They are long dead by now.








But ooh, did you know that butterflies can live up to nine months? It's true! I learned this fun fact while the attendant was trying to push an Insect Museum membership on me, being very not sly about it.


Metamorphosis in action.








Can you spot the caterpillar?

I want to be a Bug Lady for Halloween. Get it? Bug Lady? And she's a ladybug? Clever.












Now this was an interesting little activity. "Painting with Maggots". I call it "Extortion and Agony with Maggots." You take a maggot out of a container, roll it around in maggot-unfriendly paint, and prod it on a piece of paper until its death throes produce a work of art that you'll promptly throw away once you get home.


"I generally allow at least one maggot per student, with plenty of 'spares' in the event of the untimely death of one of the maggot artists. Occasionally, you will encounter a maggot that does not want to paint for you, no matter how much poking or-"

Poking or what?