These insects won’t bug you – they’ll fascinate you

People are often a bit surprised to learn that my job as an Explorit Science Center educator involves frequent bouts of cockroach handling. “Eww, you actually touch cockroaches? On purpose?” is a common reaction.

I must admit that reaching your arm into a terrarium crawling with 3-inch roaches takes a little getting used to. But anyone who has spent some time observing insects can attest to what amazing and fascinating creatures they are.

Visitors to Explorit Science Center’s “Head, Thorax, Abdomen” Family Exploration this Saturday will get a chance to see some of these fascinating creatures up close and meet a genuine insect expert. The program is free with paid admission to Explorit and runs from 1-4 p.m.

Jeff Smith, better known as Rocklin’s Bug Man, has spent more time than most studying insects closely. From the forests of Thailand and Brazil to his own front yard, Smith has searched for some of the most rare, beautiful and even irritating insects that share our planet.

I recently interviewed Smith, a pest management consultant, about his travels around the globe, how he became fascinated with bugs and what visitors to Saturday’s special program can expect.

Explorit: How did you get interested in bugs? Did you collect them when you were a kid?

Jeff Smith: As a child, my parents encouraged my fascination with nature. I collected butterflies as a boy, and a lot of my pictures from early on show me with a butterfly net in hand. This cooled as I got into high school, but a field trip with a college zoology class, to a UC field station, suddenly re-sparked the interest.

Explorit: How did your childhood hobby transform into a career?

Jeff Smith: While in the Air Force, I spent a year in Thailand and got a massive dose of tropical collecting, which can be so exciting with so many kinds, so many colors and so many sizes. I also began spending time in the California Academy of Sciences and at the UC Riverside insect museum, and began working to curate and identify material for them. Now, with a serious interest in bugs for the past 40 years and a degree in public health entomology (environmental health), my fascination just gets deeper.

Explorit: What has been one of your most memorable insect experiences?

Jeff Smith: On a trip to Brazil, after two full days of travel in planes and buses, we finally reached our destination in the rainforest in the state of Rondonia. I got out of the truck and stretched, and immediately found a 6-inch-long rhinoceros beetle on the side of one of the cabins. Of course, the huge, brilliant metallic blue Morpho butterflies are the epitome of the American rainforests, and seeing these flying along a jungle trail gets the adrenaline flowing.

Explorit: What will visitors to Saturday’s program at Explorit get to see?

Jeff Smith: I will be bringing about nine glass-topped display drawers of big, colorful insects, mostly from tropical countries. I will have examples of “killer bees” and violin spiders (brown recluse). I will also bring displays of all the bugs that eat your house, and other kinds of pests, including roaches, flies, fleas, ticks, beetles, moths etc. People always want to know what’s “bugging” them.

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Explorit Science Center is open at its new site, 2801 Second St., Davis. Through March 11, you can visit the exhibition “From Codes to Crystals: Patterns All Around.” Public hours are Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Tuesday through Friday from 2 to 4:30 p.m. For more information: www.explorit.org or (530) 756-0191.