University Relations News Bureau (601) 325-3442 Contact: Bob Ratliff [email protected] www.mssstate.edu
'Bug's life' always showing at Mississippi State museum
The movies "Antz" and "A Bug's Life" are entertaining reminders that there's a whole other world down there.
While most people pay little attention to the creeping, crawling and flying denizens of the insect world, Richard Brown of Mississippi State is on a first-name basis with them.
"I began collecting insects during the 1960s in northwestern Arkansas," said Brown, an entomology professor who directs the university's Mississippi Entomological Museum. "As a student at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, I became interested in the moths of the southern Ozarks."
Brown put his knowledge of insects to use as a medical entomologist in the military before completing his doctorate in 1980 at Cornell University. That same year he was employed as an assistant professor and director of the MSU museum.
"The museum was formed in 1979 under the leadership of MSU entomologist William Cross to combine several private and institutional collections in Mississippi," Brown said. "The research collection now contains more than 950,000 specimens, with more than 35,000 being added each year."
The museum contains row after row of drawers filled with mounted specimens of various insects. Part of the collection is more than 100 years old.
Why go to so much trouble to study the lives of insects and to preserve specimens of so many species? According to Brown, one reason is to unlock some mysteries of the roles insects play in the world.
"There is an almost infinite number of mysteries yet to be solved in the world of insects," he said. "Tortricid moths are an example of a group of insects that are very common and still something of a mystery."
The most familiar tortricid moths are those responsible for the worms sometimes found in apples. While some species are beneficial, others are significant pests on grapes and citrus crops in Central and South America, the southern U.S., Spain and other European countries. Many of the species are yet to be named, and that's a problem for scientists who study them.
Only a handful of scientists worldwide are experts on this group of moths. Brown is one. Another is Joaquin Baixeras, a professor at the University of Valencia in Spain who recently spent two months studying the tortricid specimens housed at MSU.
"The work that Dr. Baixeras and I did has helped lay the groundwork for naming various species of tortricids, which is an important step toward learning more about this group of insects," Brown said.
The Mississippi State collection also works like a brokerage house for scientists who study insects. Brown and museum curator Terry Schiefer ship specimens to entomologists throughout the U.S. and overseas, who return the insects to MSU after they have been studied and identified.
"The museum also is a resource for Mississippi farmers, homeowners and entomologists who need help identifying insects," Brown said.
-30-
To learn more about the real life of a bug, visit the museum website at
http://www.msstate.edu/Entomology/museum.html or call (601) 325-2085.
RSS