Summer at the Museum
(This column was first published in the July 9, 2001 Buffalo News.)
A
good museum is a work in
progress.
A
visit to the Buffalo Museum of Science last week confirmed that this museum is
indeed a work in progress and therefore indeed an excellent institution. If
your last visit was as little as six months ago, you will be surprised to find
there not only changed exhibits but a changed atmosphere -- an excitement -- as
well. I can think of no place in the area better suited to a summer visit by
young and old alike.
Let
me describe for you what I found last week on a tour of the museum's second floor.
At
the top of the broad staircase leading up from the atrium the balcony now
offers four showcases filled with a rich variety of exhibits. These are obvious
teasers, individual examples -- like the lowland gorilla -- taken from storage
to highlight the various halls. They show the broad range of delights to be
explored as you visit further. It took me a half hour just to get past these
showcases, their objects are so interesting.
Immediately
beyond the mezzanine in Hamlin Hall is the remarkable new anthropological
exhibit, "Through a Clouded Mirror," which connects the 1901
Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo to modern times. It does so through the
involvement in both of African-Americans. This is a wonderful evocation of that
time a hundred years ago when Buffalo was a world-class city and the connection
with today's African-American community is both appropriate and uplifting.
Next
in a side hall one of the most remarkable films about invertebrates I have ever
seen, "Microcosmos," was being introduced by Catrina Caira. Catrina
and her colleague Mary Goehrig are college students who bring to the exhibits
their infectious enthusiasm. In the film successive images outdo the preceding
ones and I found myself intimately involved in a world of caterpillars, ants
and beetles. To me the best scene is the dung beetle whose ball of dung becomes
impaled on a thorn. How the beetle releases its possession shows perfectly both
the power and limitations of its tiny brain.
On
into the major display of huge invertebrates where a twenty foot tarantula
menaces. These are most impressive but to me they are only the introduction to
the real show -- the opportunity to observe local insects and to interact with
the museum's entomology staff.
Among
the exhibits a large tank is replenished every few days with the flora and
fauna of local ponds. Through its waterweed and hornwort swim leeches,
sticklebacks, water scorpions, diving beetles and giant waterbugs -- AKA toe
biters. Snails work the tank's glass sides, crayfish search its bottom and
water striders and whirligig beetles dash about the water surface. Catrina
helped locate the individual plants and animals.
Finally
I reached the senior entomology staff -- Wayne Gall, Marc Potzler and Jacob
Wickham. In response to inquiries they place various insects on a microscope
platform to be projected enlarged on a screen behind them. When I was there,
George and Patricia Ciancio had just brought in three dobsonflies -- huge
lacewing relatives with five-inch wingspans. These are the adult form of larva
known to fishermen as hellgrammites. On their heads are pincer-shaped jaws and,
sure enough, one female gave Dr. Gall a painful nip.
The
staff will continue to be available through July and August -- Tuesday through
Friday 11-3, Saturday 12-3 and Sunday 1-4. "Microcosmos" is shown
during those times as well. Time your visit to take advantage of these
wonderful bonuses.-- Gerry Rising
Learn more about this wonderful museum at the Buffalo Museum of Science website.