Halloween Bug Zoo Bash is Oct. 27 at OSU Wooster
The Pumpkins & Pillbugs Halloween Bug Zoo Bash will take place Friday, Oct. 27 from 6-8 p.m. at the Wooster campus of Ohio State, 1680 Madison Ave.
The Pumpkins & Pillbugs Halloween Bug Zoo Bash will take place Friday, Oct. 27 from 6-8 p.m. in the Wooster Science Building at the Wooster campus of Ohio State, 1680 Madison Ave.
The Bug Zoo will be the main attraction, along with special guest reptiles, face painting, and Halloween crafts such as painting pumpkins and making yarn mummies.
Last year the Bug Zoo hosted a Halloween event on a smaller scale, said Valerie Anderson, outreach coordinator for the CFAES Entomology Graduate Student Association. “This year we wanted to make it bigger, so we decided to collaborate to bring together more resources.”
Joining the Bug Zoo and graduate student association to host the event are two other CFAES groups: Graduate Student Advisory Council and Wooster Staff Council.
The zoo’s outreach reptile owner Sarah Everhart will be on hand with her teaching collection of reptiles. That includes an Argentine tegu, “the second largest reptile you can own,” Anderson said, as well as a leopard gecko, corn snake, blue tongue skink and tortoise.
Anderson said bash participants can get up close with the reptiles and handle some of the zoo’s insects.
“If you wear an insect or reptile costume,” she said, “you will have the opportunity to have your photo featured on the Bug Zoo Blog.”
The graduate student association will sell merchandise including jewelry made by entomology students and honey bottled from bee hives they maintain.
The Bug Zoo is a curated collection of live insects and other arthropods for the purpose of education and outreach. Arthropods are a large group of invertebrates, meaning they do not have backbones. Insects, spiders, millipedes, centipedes and pill bugs are all arthropods.
In addition to the Wooster campus location, OSU Department of Entomology also has a Bug Zoo on the Columbus campus.
At Wooster the zoo has made its home in the Wooster Science Building since 2020. Anderson said the building, completed in 2019, allows the Bug Zoo to host open houses in an inviting atmosphere.
The zoo’s mission is to promote awareness, display myths and ignite curiosity for arthropods and entice budding young entomologists to the field.