Invasion of the Bloodsuckers—YSPH Researcher Curates Yale Peabody Museum Exhibit

An exhibition opening May 28, 2011, at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History features those dreaded little creatures notorious for preying on humans and sucking their blood: bedbugs, head lice, pubic lice, mosquitoes, ticks and fleas. Invasion of the Bloodsuckers: Bedbugs and Beyond explores the biology and habitats of these bloodsucking arthropods, including where and how they live, how to deal with them and how to tell them apart from lookalikes.

Blood feeders need one essential element to live: blood. Through family-friendly displays, interactive exercises, blood-feeding footage, and actual specimens, the exhibit demonstrates the diversity of these blood-feeding organisms and their relationship to humans. Each organism has a unique repertoire of adaptations and a distinct lifestyle that have evolved in close association with a host. Computer animations show the ancestral prototype mouthparts of arthropods as they morph into their present day form—the chewing herbivorous mouthparts evolving into a blood feeding tool.

Leonard Munstermann, Peabody’s curator of entomology and a senior research scientist at the Yale School of Public Health, wanted to show the public how to distinguish between bloodsuckers and other organisms often mistaken for them—important information because whereas most bites are harmless, deadly ones may go unnoticed. Some two dozen look-alike specimens from the Peabody collections are on display along with those of the bloodsuckers and information regarding anatomy and habits.

Live colonies of bedbugs and mosquitoes from the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station are on view, and Peabody preparator and Torosaurussculptor Michael Anderson has created giant, anatomically precise models of six of the major bloodsuckers.

One of the interactive elements, “Spot the Bloodsuckers,” challenges visitors to correctly identify the offending bloodsucker before it can bite its target, a sleeping child. Trivia lovers will be rewarded with interesting facts about arthropods: The Romans used them to treat snakebites and ear infections. And, the antennae of mosquitoes help distinguish males from females—the ones that bite.

Invasion of the Bloodsuckers will be on view through January 8, 2012. The exhibition is sponsored by a Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) from the National Center for Research Resources, part of the National Institutes of Health. For more information on visiting the Yale Peabody Museum and special events planned around this exhibit, please visit http://peabody.yale.edu.