Royal Entomological Society Insect Festival 2011
On Sunday 3 July, Dr Kate Barnes and Dr Karim Vahed travelled to York with a car full of insects to represent the University at the Royal Entomological Society Insect Festival to showcase how insects can help solve crimes.
It was a gloriously sunny day and hundreds of people turned up to the event. Outside their were marquees showing people how to make overwintering homes for bugs, housing talks on topical issues and organising bug hunts in the museum gardens. The children could build their own 'minibeast' from recycled materials or have their face painted with an insect design of their choice!
Inside, there were stalls hosting everything from live stick insects, bees, crickets and hoverflies through to insect themed crafts, creepy-crawly cakes and second-hand books. The crime scene insect stall was also situated here and was designed to demonstrate to the public how insects can help solve crimes. There were cages of live blowflies and beetles, and a pinned display of the types of insect that frequent a body after death. The different stages of the blowfly lifecycle were also displayed, and activities that the public could engage in, including using insects to calculate the minimum time since death of the murdered (fictional) museum gardener and ageing a blowfly maggot.
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