Staff Writer| Telegram & Gazette
Sam Jaffe is currently touring New England with his educational caterpillar exhibit, and will soon be at several locations near Worcester this month. We talked with him about his background and the colorful creatures he shares with the public.
My name is Sam Jaffe and I am the founder and director of The Caterpillar Lab in Keene NH. I grew up outside of Boston mucking about in ponds and searching through meadows with a butterfly net - but my very earliest interest in natural history and the outdoors developed through learning to take care of and raise the caterpillars I found on my adventures.
I began to photograph and show caterpillars professionally in 2008 and since then I have developed a passion to share these remarkable creatures with all who will listen. I recently graduated from Antioch New England with a Masters in Environmental Education and began The Caterpillar Lab with the help of fellow Antioch NE students. We run caterpillar related programs all across New England, but I always enjoy getting back to my roots and performing shows in Eastern and Central Massachusetts.
We will be bringing a large display of our native caterpillars to Broad Meadow Brook for the festival. Now, forget what initially comes to mind when I say a "large display"; this is bigger, livelier, and more surprising! Eight tables of open-air displays covered with all of this regions most charismatic, colorful, and large caterpillars - over fifty species. There will be microscopes and screens where we can watch eggs hatch, caterpillars shed, and caterpillars become pupae in real time. And there will be a full complement of caterpillar experts there to help guide experiences and answer questions. We have also added an arts and crafts component this year, so that visitors will be able to draw and color as they visit our tables.
The Caterpillar Lab show is definitely cool to look at! But every minute is educational as well. First and foremost we want to help open people's eyes to the amazing diversity of life that they can find right in their own backyards. Caterpillars are amazing! They are everywhere! We want people to appreciate and celebrate what our own region has to offer. Beyond this underlying message, the show is ripe with things to explore, topics to discuss, and resources to help visitors take an ever-closer look. We touch on topics of evolutionary biology, defensive adaption, predation, parasitism, and metamorphosis at every show and go deeper into these topics than any school curriculum attempts. We open cocoons to show how they are made and what is inside. We lead hands on experiences and show how a caterpillar eats, sees, and breathes.
It all started at the Barbara J. Walker Butterfly Festival. I am not sure how many years ago it was, but I was invited to show my photography at the festival and planned to spend the day there to chat visitors up about the pictures. I was told someone would be bringing live caterpillars so I decided to bring some of my own from home. Don Adams from the Massachusetts Butterfly Club had a few tables set up and I joined him that day. Year after year I returned, with ever more caterpillars and for the last four years I have brought large programs to the festival. Broad Meadow Brook really was the birthplace of The Caterpillar Lab idea.
At the age of three I was finding caterpillars and bringing them into my parents' house. They eventually figured out where all those wandering living-room caterpillars were coming from and helped me to start raising them and learning about them. Even before I started kindergarten I would tell my parents that I wanted to be an Entomologist (someone who researches insects). My interests expanded in many directions - to plants, to birds, to all sorts of insects and things that you can find under bark and rocks. I can not say that I knew I would be "that caterpillar guy" one day, but as I was already known as "Sam, Sam, the bug man" in first grade, I guess I expected to be working with insects all my life.
The Caterpillar Lab is a group devoted to working with New England caterpillars - in all sorts of ways! We have developed educational programs, we visit classrooms, lead workshops, take photographs and shoot video, assist in various caterpillar research projects going on at Harvard University and The University of Connecticut and have even helped out with dance productions centered around caterpillar defensive displays! We have a physical location in The Colony Mill Building in Keene NH where we raise thousands of caterpillars and host open hours twice a week. The Caterpillar Lab uses caterpillars as a resource to explore the land we live in and the life we share it with.
We love a busy show with all age groups present. People's reactions run the full gamut, from surprise and awe to disgust and fear (though awe and surprise is more common!). But with a mixed group, people all draw each other in for a closer look and a chance to learn something new. Kids rush to the tables excited. Parents sometimes hold back momentarily fighting old assumptions. By the end it is a tossup weather the kids will be dragging the parents from the tables or the parents dragging the kids. We have witnessed so many visitors overcoming fear and uncertainty to end up being fascinated and inspired by these creatures - it is one of the things that make all of this worthwhile.
In that case, it was a female Luna moth. They are quite heavy with eggs and it takes them a significant amount of time to warm up their wings and take flight. If we had observed the moth shivering its wings we would have gently put it back in its screen enclosure. However, we do believe that it is important for people to get up close and personal with nature, and our insects, if we hope to inspire care for them. We take certain risks, letting a child hold a moth on a quiet day, leading hands-on caterpillar experiences, so that kids can get ever closer, showing our caterpillars without any barriers between them and the viewers. We are confident we can keep these animals safe while at the same time opening up a world of experience for visitors.
Now that is always a tough question - because we always bring so many ridiculous, weird, and crazy caterpillars to our shows. Is it the giant Hickory Horned Devils this week? The bent, mottled, twig-mimicking Oak Beauties? The Gray Furcula with inflatable tails? Or maybe the slug caterpillars? Ok... It is probably the Monkey Slugs. Legless, hairy, with hydraulic spiny lobes, sliding around on an undulating white disk. I cannot wait to introduce the public to Monkey Slugs!
Bugguide.net is a fantastic resource. Naturalist photographers from all over the country load images and experts organize them to make an enormous online guide. However, the very best resource I can suggest is Dr. David Wagner's caterpillar guide "Caterpillars of Eastern North America". It is a great identification guide, and one of the very best natural history guides, for any organism group, I have ever encountered. Of course, they can also post pictures or descriptions to The Caterpillar Labs Facebook page and we can help them figure out the mystery.
This season we have one more Central Massachusetts show in addition to the Broad Meadow Brook festival. We will be showing at beautiful Tower Hill Botanic Guide on August 23. and then leading a caterpillar finding walk the next day, Sunday August 24. We will also be at The Boston Museum of Science for a two-day caterpillar weekend, August 16 and 17. Each show brings a whole host of new caterpillars and new experiences.
I spin a cocoon, pupate, and wait for spring like the rest of the caterpillars. Just kidding. This year I will be running programs into October and then turning my mind towards developing The Caterpillar Lab into a sustainable organization for the 2015 season and beyond. I will also be creating a caterpillar exhibit with an arboretum/museum in Ohio and possibly traveling to the southwest to work on caterpillar related research.
To find out more about The Caterpillar Lab they can Like us on Facebook. We post updates on our events, photographs, and even videos on cool caterpillar happenings that we observe in the lab. They can also visit my own webpage www.samueljaffe.com to see a selection of my caterpillar photography.
