May 7, 2007
Field Museum Opens Cicada Exhibit
Cicada season is almost upon us; after seventeen years, the cicadas of Brood XIII will emerge from the ground in enormous numbers this June. The insects, which have musical mechanisms in their abdomens, will certainly be hard to ignore once they have arrived in the Chicago area. To mark the emergence of the 17-year periodical cicadas, The Field Museum will open a new exhibition, Cicadas and Emerald Ash Borers, on Friday, May 18, 2007. Cicada experts are available for comment at the Museum.
The exhibit, which will be housed in several cases on the ground floor of the Museum, will feature an extraordinary video of a 17-year periodical cicada emerging from the ground, marching up trees and shrubs and bursting out of their exoskeletons to become adult cicadas. The exhibit also contains insect specimens from the Museum's collection, a letter about cicadas written by Charles Darwin to a Chicago-area scientist about the cicadas and nine different pieces of art from Asia depicting the insect and different cultural perceptions of them-including jade cicada amulets from China that were once placed in the mouths of the dead to symbolize rebirth. Cicadas will give insight to the life cycle of the cicada, the longest-living insect species in the world, and their astonishing behavioral adaptations.
Visitors will also get a chance to learn about the emerald ash borer, an invasive species of beetle that is wreaking havoc on ash trees throughout the Chicago region. One fifth of all trees in the Chicago area are ash trees, and thus endangered. Visitors can examine emerald ash borer and damaged ash specimens, as well as learn how to prevent further damage.
If the Cicadas exhibit whets your appetite for all things creepy-crawly, be sure to also visit Underground Adventure to learn more about cicadas, as well as other subterranean life forms. Underground Adventure shrinks you to the size of a bug and turns you loose in an underground soil ecosystem. You will come face-to-face with giant earwigs, ants, a wolf spider and more. True cicada fans can even climb into a cicada exoskeleton.
Cicadas and Emerald Ash Borers will be on display at The Field Museum from Friday, May 18, 2007 through Labor Day. Admission is free with basic admission. The Museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with last tickets sold at 4 p.m. For more information, call (312) 922-9410, or visit http://www.fieldmuseum.org. The Field Museum is located at 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive in Chicago.
Posted by Ron Wolford at 11:08 PM |
