Caterpillar Lab

 The Caterpillar Lab

with naturalist and photographer Samuel Jaffe

Wednesday, August 10, 2016 

 This is a drop in event between 10am - 3pm. 

Join Sam and his highly trained staff as they transform the CCMNH auditorium into a caterpillar wonderland!  Observe first hand a caterpillars’ life cycle and develop a new sense of ecological scale and time. Symbolizing change, joy and color, the caterpillar is a miracle of transformation, resurrection, rebirth and regeneration.

 Caterpillars are diverse and fantastical creatures that are little known and stay hidden from everyday view.  Their relative obscurity makes them great teaching tools as these animals can be uncovered in our own backyards. In cities and suburbs, in the northeast and southwest, caterpillars are found in astounding diversity. Additionally, caterpillars are relevant to a tremendous number of educational topics including metamorphosis, parasitism and predation, natural selection and evolution, and the importance of protecting green spaces and local ecosystems.

The Caterpillar Lab is a New England based non-profit organization that is passionate about showcasing the amazing diversity of Northeastern caterpillars through educational programs, art, and science. They work almost exclusively with native New England caterpillars and breed many of them from year to year while others are collected locally in the field.  However, most of their caterpillars are reared from eggs collected from wild female moths.