NEWS RELEASE
Immediate Release
Contact: Heather Schultz
215/299-1066
The Academy of Natural Sciences Presents
Insects: Jewels of Nature
April 23-25, 1999
Philadelphia - For one weekend only, thousands of insects will descend on Philadelphia! The Academy of Natural Sciences is thrilled to present, Insects: Jewels of Nature, the largest exposition of insect diversity ever seen in Philadelphia from
April 23-25, 1999. The Academy will display thousands of insects from its 3.5 million-specimen collection, the oldest research collection of insects in the Western Hemisphere. The event will offer amateur entomologists, nature lovers, and anyone else with a curious eye the opportunity to experience a kaleidoscope of color and an amazing array of sizes, textures and patterns that comprise the insect world. Beetles, butterflies, dragonflies, dobsonflies, damselflies, katydids, craneflies, cicadas - all these and more will dazzle and delight. The diversity and beauty of the thousands of insects will amaze adults and children alike. Insects: Jewels of Nature is free with museum admission.
Insects: Jewels of Nature offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view and learn about some of the world's most fascinating, important creatures. Insects have a tremendous impact on humans, causing billions of dollars of damage to crops and carrying fatal diseases. Yet, without insects, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems would collapse.
Awed by beauty and engaged by fascinating facts and stories, visitors to the exhibit will learn about the interconnections between insects and humans. They will also see how the specimens in the Academy's vast collection open windows to the past and hold keys to the future health of our planet.
Never before has the Academy displayed so much of its historical entomology (insect) collection. Normally seen and studied only by scientists, the collection has served a central role in American entomology for 200 years. America's first entomologists, Frederick Melsheimer, was a member of the Academy, and many other prominent natural historians have contributed to the collection, making it one of the largest and most scientifically significant in the nation today.
Insects: Jewels of Nature kicks off the Academy's $25 million endowment campaign, Partners in Discovery. The campaign will secure the financial foundation needed to preserve the Academy's collections of 21 million catalogued specimens, assess the dynamics of watersheds and underwrite field research. Individuals, organizations and businesses wishing to contribute to the Partners in Discovery campaign can learn more by calling the Academy's Development Department at 215/299-1046.
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The mission of the Academy of Natural Sciences is to expand knowledge of nature
through discovery and to inspire stewardship of the environment. The Academy of Natural
Sciences is located at 19th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway on Logan Circle. The Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and from 10 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. Admission is $8.50 for ages 13 and older, $7.75 for senior citizens and military personnel, $7.50 for children 3-12, and free to Academy members and children under 3. For 24-hour information, call 215/299-1000.
Biography
Daniel Otte, Curator of Entomology, The Academy of Natural Sciences
Ph.D., University of Michigan 1968
The impact of insects on human society is undeniable. Beneficial insects, such as bees and butterflies and ladybugs, produce food products, pollinate crops, and eat pest organisms; other insects are voracious consumers of crops or serve as vectors for serious human diseases such as malaria, river blindness, and elephantiasis. Grasshoppers, a major focus of my research, are among the most important grazing herbivores (along with mammals and butterflies) in the world's temperate grasslands, which are vital food producing areas for humans. Some species feed on economically important plants, some on weeds; sixteen species periodically form large, destructive aggregations (locust plagues) which can be particularly devastating in developing countries. Some scientists believe that we may some day be able to derive medically and economically important substances from insects in the same way that we now derive them from plants and microorganisms. For example: female centipedes spread a gooey substance on their eggs that acts as a fungicide; firefly compounds have shown anti-DNA activity which may be useful for treating diseases such as herpes; and some beetles contain steroids that lower the fertility of predators. Insects comprise the largest of all groups of organisms on earth, with perhaps as many as 10 million species (according to E.O. Wilson); however, only 750,000 have so far been described by scientists.
I currently have a grant from the National Science Foundation to produce a database on North American grasshoppers (1,544 described species and hundreds still unknown) which will be the foundation for publication of Volumes 3 and 4 of the series The North American Grasshopper, a four volume work of which Volumes 1 and 2 are already complete. This comprehensive series contains information about the systematics and distribution of grasshoppers on the North American continent from Panama to Alaska; it summarizes data, describes new species, analyzes relationships, contains illustrated keys, comparison tables, color illustrations of all species, maps, evolutionary trees, recognition features, and discussions of habitat, ecology, life cycles, behavior, and biogeography. This project is one phase of a larger, long-term project, a global taxonomically oriented, multimedia (graphics, sound, and text) computer catalog of the world's orthopteroid species, which includes (in addition to grasshoppers) crickets, cockroaches, katydids, mantids, and walking sticks.
In addition to grasshoppers, I have studied crickets extensively. I have described 23% of the world's crickets in such works as Crickets of Hawaii, Crickets of Australia, and Catalog to the Crickets of the World. Many species of crickets can be identified by their songs, and recording them has been a major part of my research program. I have now amassed a collection of approximately 20,000 recordings of acoustic insects (more than 200 hours of recordings.) For both grasshoppers and crickets, I have a particular interest in examining relationships between closely related species, especially in origins of species and the development of fauna that have been geographically isolated (for example, by mountains or bodies of water). This interest has taken me to 35 countries, from remote mountaintops in the western United States and Mexico, to the beaches, ravines and cliffs of Hawaii, to tiny islands in the Caribbean, to deserts and grasslands in Africa, and to swamps in Malaysia.
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