ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, February 5, 1996 TAG: 9602060036
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH DAY PASHLEY STAFF WRITER
Been bugged lately?
We don't mean bugged by your brother or sister. We're talking creepy-crawly bugs, big bugs, big enough to carry you away.
That's right. Twenty-three third-graders from Roanoke Catholic Lower School found themselves face to face with bugs that were bigger than they.
Where did they discover this world of giant insects? They bumped into them on a recent field trip to the Science Museum of Western Virginia.
The kids explored "Backyard Monsters: The World of Insects," which features an 8-foot praying mantis that could give you a ride on its back. There's also a carpenter ant that could hold you in its mouth.
This is an exhibit of larger-than-life insects - with robotic bugs built many times bigger than real life. It includes a scorpion, a unicorn beetle and a hanging 16-foot dragonfly - all displayed in lifelike environments. The insects are robotic, which means they have motors that make some parts move.
"It was a fascinating exhibit," their third-grade teacher, Louise Kielty, said. "The size of the insects was large enough for kids to get a good look at the shape and size of the body parts.''
In addition to the robotic insects, the museum displays more than 1,000 specimens of life-size exotic insects and arachnids. Arachnids are eight-legged bugs such as scorpions and spiders.
Because they're small, it's hard to see insects in action. If bugs were bigger, we'd probably pay more attention to them.
The Catholic pupils learned that real-life bugs lead busy, but brief, lives. They hunt prey, spin webs, build homes and work in teams. They also fool their victims: They camouflage themselves by blending in with their environment, which includes plants, logs and dirt.
The class rushed to the exhibits "RoboBug" and "Assemble An Ant."
At "RoboBug," pupils used a control to make two six-legged mechanical insects walk back and forth.
"It's weird," said 9-year-old Kristen Drahos. "It's going to be hard to work. It's hard to get the legs to cooperate in the area it has to move in."
"It's neat because you get to move it around," said Chad Pellitt, 8.
"It's fun because you get to control it," Katie Walters, 9, said.
"Can I drive it?" Andrew Gillespie asked.
While some pupils moved bugs, others built ants. Drahos asked her classmates, "What are you guys building?" Ant-building required sorting body parts by color and number. Connecting all the parts of the same color constructed an ant, a big ant.
Like a team of carpenter ants, 8-year-olds Jason Stroud, Johnny Rokisky and Mallory Weatherman built a huge red ant. Weatherman attached body part No. 2, an antenna.
"How many body parts are in an ant?" Kietly asked.
"Twenty parts," Rokisky answered, "It's a big, fat ant." The main parts of an ant are: a head, a thorax, an abdomen, six legs and two antennae.
"They like to `do,''' Kielty said. "They put a carpenter ant together. They moved robotic insects. Hands-on is best for them; they like to experiment."
Across the room the robotic carpenter ants, which are 96 times their actual size, showed team work, too. One ant brought home part of a meal to another ant.
In real life, a carpenter ant carries food down into the nest - a series of tunnels running through a rotten log and the ground beneath it. The food helps feed a colony, a family or group of ants that live together. The colony may contain more than 3,000 ants.
The museum's 8-foot-tall, bright-green robotic praying mantis sits in a sea of green leaves. It matches its environment. Real mantids sway from side to side to look like a leaf. That fools their victims.
What did the kids think of the jumbo praying mantis?
"He's the best because he looks neat," Walters said.
Natalie Ellmann, 8, agreed, "I like the praying mantis the best. I saw one in my front yard on a bush [in the summer]. I looked at him."
The pupils saw that this praying mantis had big eyes in relation to its body size. They thought it had a good view of its surroundings.
"Mantids are good at eating other insects," said Margaret Rhodes, the museum's volunteer tour guide. "They're good for gardens."
Gardeners can buy mantids instead of spraying toxic pesticides.
To learn what insects eat, how they defend themselves, where they live, the good news about them and how many there are, visit the Science Museum of Western Virginia in downtown Roanoke's Center in the Square before June 9. That's when the bugs fly away.
Admission: $5 adults; $4 for senior citizens; $3 for children ages 3-12.
For more information and hours, call 342-5710.
"One-Half Price Friday" is the second Friday of each month.
Models on display at museum
Following are robotic models of insects on display at the Science Museum of Western Virginia:
1. Emperor scorpion (Pandinus imperator)
2. Male unicorn beetle (Dynastes granti)
3. Praying mantis (Sphrodromantis veridis)
4. Dragonfly (Anax junius)
5. Carpenter ant (Camponotus vicinus)
FYI: Liz, Backyard Critters Hopkins Planetarium show will be in Feb., no date yet
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: JESSIE CHRISTNER. 1. Pupils from Roanoke Catholic Schoolby CNBtake turns controlling the mechanical spider at the "Backyard
Monsters" display at the Science Museum of Western Virginia in
Roanoke's Center in the Square. color. 2. This giant praying mantis
is part of the robitic insect display, "Backyard Monsters," now
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