9 replies to this topic

[centrarchid]

We are doing our annual thing in the Missouri Agriculture Building this Saturday.  Since we cannot work with fin-fish in a manner that is easy on animals or as good at pulling people in to discuss aquaculture, we resort to using a touch table exhibition of "charismatic meso-fauna".  We sucker people in educating and entertaining as we angle them in for the pitch about our aquaculture program.  We expect to people to touch and in many cases spell our display.  Sometimes they get pinched or bit and thank us for the opportunity.

 

This round the stars will be as follows;

1) Virile Crayfish (we show people how to sex them)

2) Golden Crayfish (35+ plus species in Missouri alone and hint about diversity of NA's aquatic assemblages)

3) Long Pincered Crayfish (we insult peoples concept of a large crayfish)

4) Seed shrimp (associated with late season wetlands)

5) Glass Shrimp (lowland critters most people seldom see)

6) Whirlygig Beetles (smell so sweet, really cool propulsion system, two visual systems, extreme metabolic rate)

7) Hexagenia Mayfly (nymphs, subimagos and imagos; we talk about burrowing, feeding as well as importance to animals like sturgeon and animals consuming drift / hatch near bodies of water)

Water Scorpions (feeding system and breathing system)

9) Dragonfly Nymphs (multiple species; specializations at genus level and general feeding and breeding systems)

10) Bladderwort (carnivorous plant one of our producers cultures)

 

Whirlygig Beetles demonstrate ability to consume a mayfly in seconds putting even piranhas to shame.

 

 

Our display is always popular and having few hundred people come by is not a big deal.  Will be on station from 1000 to 2000 h.  We leave exhausted.

 

[TimothyHD]

That's pretty cool!

[centrarchid]

Please ignore my misspellings.  I can blame it on issues related to need for glasses.

 

Our efforts do promote some of the NANFA's stated goals.

[mattknepley]

Pretty cool stuff. I had no idea Whirlygigs had a pleasing smell. I didn't know any insect did. There's a millipede in WV that smells like vanilla, if I remember correctly from those days, but that's as close as I would've known.

Which Utricularia? I've got one in my garbage can rain barrel that I acquired in early May. It struggled for a couple months, but since mid-July it's doing well. And keeps the rain barrel skeeter free at least as well as a handful of gambusia. I bet they're popular at your event. People are fascinated to see the little traps and learn that is what they really are.

[Michael Wolfe]

People say whirligigs smell like kiwi or watermelon or sour apple depending on who you ask. They do very much smell very sweet and depending on the pre-suggested fruit, they really do smell good.

[centrarchid]

We ask the sniffer what the think.  Green apples and watermelon top the list.  The smaller species we do not handle smell like dirty socks.

[centrarchid]

We had >1,120 patrons visit our display.  Patrons means two way exchange.  Having trouble uploading images.

 

https://www.backyard...m.407880/page-8  

[centrarchid]

[mattknepley]

That's a lot of face time. Great job! What do they seem most interested in?

[centrarchid]

They are least interest in bladder wort and seed shrimp.  We try to get so everyone sees everything and get the cool stories to that come with each.  Multiple times 15 or so people would stack up to listen as if I am some sort of preacher even though they are not close enough to see what was going on.  They could not see so they were not counted as proper contacts.  We could also pool in people from rival land grant university despite their initially snubbing us.  Now that made you feel good!

 

At end of day we were exhausted.