bogleech

[bogleech]

PDX INSECTARIUM MASTERPOST:

The PDX Insectarium began, coincidentally, the same year that I moved to Oregon, initially a traveling popup for a few years before establishing is first permanent location. Unfortunately they are now in their third different location, and will likely have to move again by next year! They also recently applied for a state grant as an educational facility so they could afford to expand and upgrade, but they were passed over, so they're always in need of more visitors and funds! The more money they make, the cooler the things they can exhibit.

ESSENTIAL INFO:

LOCATED at 5429 N Moore Ave in Portland, Oregon

OPEN 11-5 pm Wednesday, 12-6 pm on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. CLOSED only Monday and Tuesday!

$5 per person every Thursday! All other days are $10 per adult or $7 per child, discounts given for EBT recipients

WALK-INS WELCOME, but you can book ahead to avoid any potential wait times if we're at maximum capacity.

There isn't really a time limit. 30 minutes is what you officially pay for, but it's only a loose guideline for those times when we're full! You can chill out and take your time! Seeing and appreciating everything is much more likely to take an hour or more.

WHAT'S THERE:

-100+ live species including tarantulas, jumping spiders, black widows, the only brown recluse you can normally see in Oregon, various scorpions, an amblypigid, a vinegaroon, giant millipedes, phasmids, mantids, beetles, true bugs, a mosquito fishbowl, lots of temporary/rotating specimens and a native crawfish named Zoidberg who is still very small for his species but he clearly does not know that.

-An assortment of exotic pinned specimens including some of the world's largest insects. Come see the corpse of one of the largest of all weevils!

-A free touch area for handling desert beetles, giant roaches, isopods and superworms. Some of the main display animals like mantids and millipedes can be touched and held for an additional $5 each!

-Play area with bug toys, costumes and art supplies as well as a collection of books and games.

-Gift shop with toys, plushes, jewelry, accessories, specimens, art, and supplies for collecting or keeping arthropods. All ages are encouraged to draw us something, which will be displayed on the walls until the walls get full, at which point some artwork gets cycled into an album you can also check out!

I work there Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday at 1-4 pm! The gift shop also includes some stuff made by me and @revretch (pins, stickers, etc). If you come by while I'm there, I'll give you a couple little free bonus rubber bugs by request. On the down-low. Our little secret. MOST VISITORS sadly just kind of breeze right through and miss a lot of specifics, so please ask all the questions you can, everyone who works there badly wants to get to talk about everything, and we all want to show you the smaller things we keep behind the counter like the orchid mantises and jumping spiders!

[bogleech]

You wont believe exactly where a mole's eyes are relative to its skull

Dirt orca

[bogleech]

We out here, stridulating off key

[bogleech]

Me wehn I find out you're in my empty brown chamber 😠

Baroque (Sting - PSX - 1999)

[bogleech]

"Cicada Hanging Flower Basket"

Ryūrikyõ style basketry, bamboo

Weaver: Tanabe Chikuunsai I

1877-1937 the taisho period

[bogleech]

It would take a while.

Can I please come over and look at all your stuff in your room

[bogleech]

Haven't added anything to this bottle in years, life just comes and goes in it :)

[bogleech]

It's the river, not the beach, I've been going here for years and never seen it so low

Wtf it's only been 3 days since I took the top photos

[bogleech]

Wtf it's only been 3 days since I took the top photos

[bogleech]

I think instead of trying to learn music software I just need to get a keyboard, or see if this old one we have still works. I used to play with one all the time as a kid and make up little tunes, it's like sculpting in that it's another thing I dropped by my teens

[bogleech]

i really like this thing where websites will have separate "log in" & "sign up" buttons and if you click "log in" it takes you to a sign-up screen anyway so you have to click "i already have an account" and then it will ask if you want to sign in with your facebook account or with instagram or linkedin or deviantart or whatever, and if you choose "username & password" it asks if you want to put in your username or use your thumbprint, and once you put your username & password it emails you a confirmation code, and once you put in the code it says "do you want to give us your phone number for future sign-ins? do you want to sign up for facial recognition? do you want to give us your bones? give us your fucking bones?

[bogleech]

You know what, I'm silly. I know full well mosquitoes can't carry disease without biting something infected already, and most species aren't vectors of anything at all, and I already get bit up at the river all the time. It's no big deal.

I am gonna see how long this can last without interference, but if the colony started collapsing it'd be completely harmless to just put my arm over the gauze and let maybe just a couple bite me. I'd just have to be careful that it's really just a couple who get to and not 500.

Plus I want to get into keeping fish, and I'm trying to rear dragonflies, and the insectarium has had trouble keeping some of its aquatic predators fed. Mosquito larvae are highly ideal feeders.

I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna practice the seemingly unheard of art of deliberate mosquito husbandry.

Did you all know by the way that mosquito larvae are water cleaners? Just like mussels, except mosquitoes can thrive in water nothing else can tolerate. Scroll back up and look at that filthy brown water! Here it is today, having never gotten any added water and inhabited almost solely by mosquito wrigglers:

I covered this jar of old pond water to keep mosquitoes out, didn't realize there were that many mosquito larvae already inside...

An entire generation apparently

....who couldn't get out, but still mated and made another generation.

It is true that they don't actually require blood to at least lay SOME eggs. I always thought maybe they still needed some nectar but I guess not, the adults are ready to mate the instant they emerge so I guess in an enclosed space they find mates well before they run out of nutrient fuel.

I can never open this. I wonder how long it can keep going. Larvae just feed on bacteria and algae, which are fed by a combination of sunlight and the dead adults.

Just happens to be a jar I'd put this custom sticker on when I was keeping leeches in it. (centuries old japanese art of a "bug" that causes illness)

[bogleech]

I didn't know these characters were so into cheese. You learn a lot.

[bogleech]

[bogleech]

This is such a perfect concept

My vampires CAN walk into the sunlight but doing so would reveal what they would look like if they aged normally

Younger vampires don’t have much to worry about but older vamps have reason to avoid sunlight as they age. They are still immortal, but their aged, sunlit selves are significantly weaker than their non-sunlit forms. Vamps over 100 years old run the risk of crumpling over, fully immobile, but still conscious

[bogleech]

shes singing pictures ;_;