Month: August 2021

Biodiversity, Events

Exhibition at Durban Natural Science Museum

It was a bitter-sweet experience, seeing (yesterday, for the first time!) the temporary insect exhibition at the Durban Natural Science Museum. Charles (aka Andrew) Carter and I had spent so much time working on this back in 2018 and 2019. In January 2020 he was still putting the finishing touches on it… when Covid-19 struck.

Entitled Insects: the silent extinction. Do we know what we are losing?

It will still be up for a week or two. For directions click here.

One of the world’s largest insect: the Goliath beetle.
Content from the book What Insect Are You? and specimens from the museum’s insect collection.
Covid-19 restrictions prevent group events

The information came to a large extent from the book What Insect Are You? and from follow-up educational events offered under its banner. The specimens came from the museums’ amazing insect collection. (It so happens that the curator of this collection used to be Kirstin Williams, one of the experts who reviewed the book.)

T. rex wonders “Why did those things survive and I didn’t?”

The exhibition went up without warning or fanfare in 2020. It was mentioned briefly in Thola magazine Volume 21 (page 23), but due to Covid-19, visits to the museum by school groups slowed to a trickle. It would have been great to run educational events there, for school children and the public. But alas!

Marlies Craig (of EASTER Action) and Charles Carter (of Durban Natural Science Museum)

By the end of this month (August 2021) the exhibition will be removed, to make space for the next. Perhaps we can find a new home for it? Thanks again Charles for your hard work bringing it to life. And thanks to Durban Natural Science Museum for spreading the word that insects are our life support!

Biodiversity, Leopard's Echo

Insects: masters of multiplication

Insects are good at multiplication. They dominate life on earth – in diversity, numbers and volume. It may be hard to believe, but termites and ants alone could account for a quarter of all animal biomass on land. But now these creatures, that we took for granted, and whose existence even irk certain people, are suddenly on the long (and growing) list of things we need to protect, not destroy.

Luckily, insects can bounce back quickly in numbers, as soon as their natural habitat is restored, and the poisoning ceases – thanks to their ability to multiply. This issue contains stories related to this multiplication process.

Toktokkie beetles handle the courtship remotely via virtual meetings. Males start the conversation, by drumming their abdomen on the ground, until a female responds. A pair exchange signals until, eventually, they locate each other. Then it’s run and jump and hold on tight.

Read the whole article in Leopard’s Echo, a bi-annual online magazine of Kloof Conservancy.