Rockingham bug lovers can get up close and personal with their favorite critters

By Lisa Snedeker
Correspondent
Published: July 23, 2008

If you like things that creep and crawl, you have two opportunities this weekend to get up close. Bugs of all kinds will be on display and available for touching, if you dare, at the annual Insectaphobia.

“Everyone should come out not only because the festival will be fun and educational, we have a wide variety of things for people to do,” said Rick Bolling, in charge of scales and slime at the center for about 30 years. “We have the new Omnisphere and the mane wolves exhibit is open, so there’s a lot of activities available, even if they’re not into bugs.”

Bolling, curator of reptiles, aquatic and invertebrates, said children can pet a giant African millipede, a tarantula and a hissing cockroach from Madagascar. Guildford County Beekeepers Association will provide a live honeybee hive, and Alan McLeod will display his collection of local and exotic moths and butterflies, along with some very hungry caterpillars. Ron Key will have live scorpions and tarantulas, Bolling said.

For the first time, representatives from All A Flutter butterfly farm in High Point will bring local butterflies and talk about a butterfly’s life cycle. People can learn about butterfly gardening and insects that benefit gardens from staff at New Garden Nursery.

Snake and amphibian lovers will want to head to the Virginia Museum of Natural History in Martinsville, Va., for the second annual Reptile Day on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The festival attracted 1,200 visitors last year, said Ryan Barber, director of marketing. While Reptile Day is supposed to entertain visitors, it also helps people understand the positive and necessary effect reptiles have on the environment.

“I want people to learn their importance to the environment and their importance to people,” said Mark Kilby of the Luray Zoo, who will present “Alligators!” Other presenters include Jason Gibson of the Virginia Herpetological Society with “Poisonous & Venomous Reptiles and Amphibians in Virginia,” as well as Keith Farmer of the N.C. Herpetological Society with “Snake Mythconceptions.”