Bugs. . . and Philip!

Late Friday evening, I picked up my nephew Philip at the Colorado Springs airport. He's here for his week-long vacation in Colorado with his favorite aunt (OK, his only Aunt on this side of the family!). As a student at a private school back in Louisiana, he's required to do so many hours of community service. Since the USOC is a non-profit organization, and he loves sports, it make sense that he'd come hang out with me for a week and do some hours! Actually, this is his third summer of working-vacations!

Last summer when he wasn't helping our Performance Technology Dept. at work, he was helping me shovel rocks out of my back yard! To make it up to him this year, I promised that we'd do no work away from work! Since my VW Fox no longer is able to support long road trips, I rented a little compact car for the weekend and Philip and I did some sightseeing. That huge bug you see in the first picture is actually a replica of a giant Hercules beetle bigger than the VW Fox that marks the turnoff for the May Natural History Museum of the Tropics. Am I the only one who sees the irony of this?! A museum of TROPICAL natural history in Colorado Springs?! The place where you have to spend $200 a month on water to get a glimpse of green on your lawn?! The place where Philip's nose has bled every day because of such low humidity (as did mine the whole first year I lived here)?! The place where I got snowed in by several blizzards this year?! I could go on and on, but I won't go any further!!!

After passing this gigantic bug on several motorcycle rides over the last year, I finally took the time to stop and check it out. Much more acceptable with a 15-year old nephew than with a half-dozen bikers!!! We weren't sure what to expect from a museum that was part of a campground well outside of the city limits, but we ended up being pleasantly surprised with what we saw for the $6 entry fee! What awaited were over 8000 perfectly preserved invertebrates. Lots of beetles, butterflies, moths, stick insects, spiders and even a fruit bat- all clearly labeled and easily viewed.

The museum is part of the collection of James May. Mr. May was born in England in the late 1800s but grew up in Brazil. In 1929, James May and his son John starting touring the country with their exhibit of over 100,000 bugs. The collection found a permanent home in their ranch 9 miles southwest of Colorado Springs. The whole collection isn't on exhibit at one time, but rather makes appearances as the displays are rotated. I asked the lady manning the counter why house the collection in Colorado Springs of all places, and quite off the beaten path at that. She said that the dry, arid environment here makes it a perfect locale for preserving and displaying the collection!

Philip and I marvelled at how vivid the colors were in a lot of the specimens. The bugs were displayed in a very scientific way, just like I had seen in natural museums around the world. Push pins to minimize the damage to fragile wings and legs (there was even a mosquito held up by a pin!) with small handwritten labels identifying each specimen by its lay name, scientific name and where it had been captured. Most of the bugs seemed to be from the Amazon region of South America and from a few islands around the continent. There was one display with an amazingly diverse group of bugs, both crawling and flying kinds. Upon closer examination, we discovered that everything in that case had been collected right outside of a building in Florida!!

After debating whether or not I should include this picture of a tarantula eating a hummingbird, Philip convinced me that my nephew Gavin would think it was cool! So, I leave you with this disturbing sight of wildlife having dinner and hope that the last picture that my niece Julia looks at is the one of the Disney-colored butterfly!

Philip will be here until the end of the week, so stay tuned for more adventures!