Kirby, Dill show off UMaine Extension’s exotic bug collection for BDN
The Bangor Daily News reported on the “animal room” housed in the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Pest Management Office in Orono. For more than 30 years, Clay Kirby, the office’s insect diagnostician, has employed the collection’s millipedes, walking sticks and cockroaches in educational programs, such as Bug Maine-ia, a science education event held annually at the Maine State Museum in Augusta, according to the article. “Cockroaches are easy to rear in captivity,” Kirby said, explaining why the collection has three different species of cockroaches. “They’re pretty tough. They reproduce nicely. They’re pretty easy to feed. They’re not picky on the food.” UMaine Extension’s live arthropod collection was started by pest management specialist Jim Dill in the early 1980s for educational purposes, the article states. “Most everything we’ve got was given to us, and we cultured it,” Dill said.