THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 28, 1996 TAG: 9610260040
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: 79 lines
LOOKING FOR a place where you can put your children in touch with nature and Halloween? Well, you might want to drop them off at the Virginia Marine Science Museum and let 'em play with leeches, bats and rats.
Yep, there will be a cobwebbed Creepy, Crawly Room at the museum from now through Sunday.
I think some kids are already in the room. Let's listen in:
``Yuck.''
``Gross''
``Eek''
``Arrrgggghhh''
Yep, this little darkly lit chamber of natural horrors has got it all, including hissing cockroaches.
And here comes our hostess now. It's the lovely bat lady Carol Ann Curran, who is showing the children her nice hognose snake and some sewer rats.
Curran, a museum interpreter, never met a fugitive from the Orkin man she didn't like.
And she tries - with mixed success - to pass along her fondness for things that may slither, creep, wiggle or go bump in the night.
See, she's holding a tiny bat named Radar right this minute. It eats 40 meal worms a night.
And holy smokes, Batman, now she's allowing a pair of rats to crawl over her shoulder and inspect her ears.
``These rats are plentiful in Hampton Roads, and they are very clean,'' she explains. ``They spend a lot of time grooming each other. People think rats are dirty because they are seen in garbage dumps or sewers looking for food. But it is the dumps and sewers - which are man made - that are dirty. Rats are really clean.''
Did you ever hear anything like it? ``Some rats grow to be as large as a 10-pound cat,'' she says. ``They are incredibly intelligent.''
Did I tell you the lady liked slimy stuff? Get a load of this:
``Oh, those squirmy things are maggots, kids. Maggots have a good side, you know, because they eat and help decompose animal waste.''
If you guys would like to see what happens to critters when maggots flock to them, get a load of this snake skeleton. And look at these possum and raccoon skulls. Are we talking gross stuff now or what?
Hey, forget the skulls for a minute. Let's take a break over here in the worm pit, where you can actually dig for worms in a large, earth-filled box. Did you know earth worms return nutrients to the soil? No! Wait a minute. .
You kids are not going to believe our good luck. The museum has just received a fresh supply of owl droppings. There's a place over yonder where you can sit down and look at the droppings under a microscope!
I'm going to examine an owl dropping under my microscope now by turning this knob. Wow! I think there are bits of bone and hair in there! Neat. I think it may be part of a rat. Uh-oh. We'd better not tell Ms. Curran. . . . You know how she likes rats.
Not sweat, kids, I was wrong. Ms. Curran likes owls, too. Look, she's over there holding one on her gloved fist. It's really tiny.
``This is an eastern screech owl named Swivel,'' she explains. Swivel is so named because he can turn his head 280 degrees without moving his body.
Most of the critters in the Creepy Crawly Room are native to Virginia. But there are a few exceptions, like the tarantula that looks like a hand wearing a black glove. And the thing that just flew into your hair. Lemme get it out. Hmmm. Just as I suspected. It's a giant, flying cockroach from a rain forest.
Then there's a millipede from Virginia and North Carolina that releases a cherry fragrance like a cough drop when it's threatened. ``That fragrance is actually a small dose of cyanide for its enemy,'' Curran said.
Curran just loves those cyanide-releasing millipedes, kids. Ain't she something. Can't beat her with a Devil's Walking Stick. MEMO: The Virginia Marine Science Museum, 717 General Booth Blvd.,
Virginia Beach, is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
TAMARA VONINSKI
The Virginian-Pilot
Carol Ann Curran of the Virginia Marine Science Museum, decked out
in a costume representing a colony of bats, holds rats Whitey and
Nails in the museum's Creepy, Crawly Room. by CNB