CORVALLIS - Scientists at Oregon State University are brewing up something special for Halloween this year.

On Oct. 30-31, LaSells Stewart Center will come alive with the creepiest, crawliest and crunchiest creatures the university can dish up in an event called Museum Days.

Costumed volunteers from OSU's departments of Entomology, Botany and Plant Pathology, and Fisheries and Wildlife will share their collections from the spooky to the spectacular.

Visitors will have a chance to make friends with a king toad, an emperor scorpion or a 9-inch African millipede. Cuddle a cockroach or shake hands with a walking stick. And don't forget the maggot races, which will run every half-hour.

Starting at 2:45 p.m. each day, cauldron-stirring entomologists will be cooking up the best in bug cuisine. Come sample such delicacies as dry-roasted grasshoppers or stir-fried mealworms and garlic. Dessert? Try cricket and mealworm cookies.

For those whose taste tends more to the sublime, there will be Oregon apples to sample, and native plants and drop-dead gorgeous butterflies on display. The doors at LaSells Stewart Center, 875 S.W. 26th Street, will creak open for Museum Days from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Museum Days is free and open to the public.

 

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Source: 

Lynn Royce, 541-737-3151

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