All eyes on bugs at the Burke Museum

Bugs are a total blast, at least according to the Burke Museum's curator of arachnids, and the 1,000 or so people who attend the Burke's annual family event, Bug Blast.

COMING UP

BUG BLAST

WHEN: Sunday, 10 a.m. -- 5 p.m.

WHERE: Burke Museum, on the UW campus near Northeast 45th Street and 17th Avenue Northeast; 206-543-5590; www.burkemuseum.org

ADMISSION: $6.50 general, $5 senior, $3 students/youth, 5 and under are free

This year's Bug Blast is on Sunday, when visitors can get up close and personal with all kinds of critters, meet bug experts, touch some large (and alive!) bugs, examine bugs under a microscope, and look at some fascinating bug collections from adults and children.

"The purpose is to bring together all kinds of kids and adults who are interested in bugs, and have no one around them who thinks their interest is anything but crazy!" explains Rod Crawford, the Burke's curator of arachnids. Crawford also wants "to send the idea to kids and their parents that it's not only cool to be interested in bugs, but there's hardly anything in the world more interesting than bugs."

At Bug Blast, kids can get their faces painted with bug designs, practice "seeing like a bug" through special bug-eye-glasses, do a variety of bug-related craft projects, watch worker bees tend their queen in a transparent beehive, and watch the hidden lives of ants through the museum's live Ant Cam. And, if you're hungry, you can try some crispy fried larvae.

Don Ehlen and his famous "Insect Safari" will let visitors examine more than 2,100 preserved specimens, including giant tropical beetles and colorful butterflies. The Pacific Science Center's Bug Zoo will bring a few spiders.

Members of Scarabs: The Bug Society will answer questions and help you identify your own bug collections. Dr. Margriet Dogterom, a pollination expert and author of "Pollination With Mason Bees," along with the Puget Sound Beekeepers Association, will help you get started as a backyard beekeeper. And don't miss the 9-foot-high Bug Wall, a transparent tomb of 600 species of Washington insects.

One participant of Bug Blast is 12-year-old Alex Barr, a Carnation resident who's been collecting bugs from his yard almost since he could walk, and exhibiting his collection at Bug Blast since it started six years ago.

"He has been interested in bugs since he was about 2 years old," explains his mom, Lisa Barr.

"I don't really know why, I just liked the way they walked," Alex says.

His collection now numbers between 300 and 400, and they are artfully pinned and kept in a special box in his closet.

While collectors can order insects on the Internet, Alex prefers to catch them himself. In fact, when Alex was being treated for leukemia at the age of 5, he decided he wanted to someday go to a rain forest to collect interesting bugs. He had to wait until his treatment was finished, so in 2000, at the age of 9, he and his family traveled to Panama to collect bugs with entomologists from the Smithsonian.

"It was really neat. We went to this island that not many people get to go to," he says. "And I got to open the Panama Canal. I got special permission to go in the control tower and push buttons (to let a ship through)."

An entomologist even named a rare species of wasp after him -- Augochlora Alexanderi.

Alex, who is in remission, has also been on bug collecting trips to Arizona, Hawaii and the Florida Everglades.

"Wherever we go he brings his net," his mother says.

Doree Armstrong is a Seattle-based free-lance writer. She can be reached at doreearmstrong@yahoo.com.

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