2020 Met Soc Nat Historians

Online Holiday Bed Bugs with Lou Sorkin

Sunday, December 6, 2020 AT 2 -4 PM EST

https://www.facebook.com/events/377648826990836

Holiday season is fast approaching and what better way to get that warm and cozy holiday feeling than learning about bed bugs! The public event is hosted by Stephanie Loria and The Metropolitan Society of Natural Historians

https://www.facebook.com/groups/258831564151843/permalink/3807227385978892

Please join us for our next event on Sunday, December 6 at 2 PM EST via Zoom (Co-hosts for the event: The Metropolitan Society of Natural Historians & The New York Entomological Society). “Online Holiday Bed Bugs” with Entomologist Lou Sorkin from the American Museum of Natural History. Lou, who is an expert on bed bugs, will show us his live bed bug colony virtually and teach us about their life cycle, natural history and behaviors.

RESERVATIONS: If you are interested in participating in this event, please email metropolitannaturalhistory@gmail.com. Once your reservation is confirmed a zoom link will be emailed to you. NB: This event will be recorded for sharing afterwards.

Lou Sorkin is treasurer of the New York Entomological Society and also one of its primary meeting organizers. He recently retired earlier this year from his 42-year career in the Invertebrate Zoology Division at the American Museum of Natural History. While at the museum, Lou worked primarily with the spider collection, maintaining and organizing this huge collection and assisting many arachnologists from all over the world with their research. Besides his scientific career, Lou has been a longstanding educator for the museum, promoting insects and other arthropods to school groups, NYES and the general public and can often be seen walking around the museum wearing tobacco hornworms (pictured below) in hope that kids and parents will look up from their phones and ask questions about these blue caterpillars! Outside of the museum, Lou has been active in entomophagy (eating insects), organizing several bug-eating events as well as forensic entomology, with some investigations he has been involved with having aired on television. But despite his varied interests, one of Lou's true passions is the common bed bug, Cimex lectularius (Hemiptera: Cimicidae). Over the past 30 years, Lou has been studying the life cycle and natural history of these notorious insects by examining infestations in homes, businesses, hotels and raising his own bed bug colony for research and education. Of course, to keep his colony alive, he has to feed them, and over the years, Lou has fed himself to a few hundred thousand bed bugs! Many of his recent bed bug behavioral videos and explanations have appeared on his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/louis.sorkin/, some pest management and insect study groups. For our event, Lou will share his knowledge about these insects with us.

THE NEW YORK ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY, INC.