EcoTarium Announces Newest Exhibit “Attack of the Bloodsuckers”

Thursday, May 17, 2018
GoLocalWorcester News Team

The EcoTarium has announced their newest exhibition featuring live mosquitoes and leeches titled “Attack of the Bloodsuckers.”

“We always want to provide our guests opportunities for a memorable time learning and playing together. In this exhibit, we definitely wanted visitors to practice their science skills, but I think they’re going to see how much fun we had making the exhibit too,” said Betsy Loring, Director of Exhibits and Facilities at the EcoTarium.

The exhibit opens on Saturday, May 19 and will run through Saturday, September 2.

The Exhibit

The exhibit will feature live mosquitoes and leeches, and explore the science behind how some animals survive by eating the blood of other creatures.

It is a hands-on exploration of the why and how of mosquitoes and ticks, leeches and lice, even bats, birds and fish track down blood for their meals.

Highlights of the exhibit are as follows:

Wentzscopes
Take a close look at some familiar bloodsuckers that you normally try to avoid: a head louse, flea, bed bug, tick and mosquito.

Tool Time
Be a mosquito! Use your probe to find a vein in an arm. Get a close-up look at a mosquito’s proboscis (tube-mouth), and the slicing jaws and suction-cup mouths other bloodsuckers use to get their blood meals.

Suckers Talk Back
Bloodsuckers plead for their lives! The mosquito, leech, tick and black fly explain their important place in the natural world

Suckers from Around the World
Check out the weird suckers around the world: a life-like model of a vampire bat, a preserved sea lamprey and portraits of a vampire moth, vampire fish and a tag-team pair of blood-sucking bird species from the Galapagos.