Despite pouring rain, hundreds showed up to learn about insects Saturday.
About 400 people attended the UF Entomology Club’s annual BugFest in Steinmetz Hall. This was the second-highest turnout since the event began in 2012, said Evan Waite, the event coordinator for the club.
The event was sponsored by Student Government, the UF entomology junior said. It cost $350, including $250 for supplies and $100 for advertising.
This year’s theme was “Around the World in 80 Bugs.” Organizers divided the entomology building into continents, with each featuring the bugs found there.
Activities in each area included honey tasting, educational displays, cockroach racing and cricket spitting, where contestants spat frozen crickets into targets.
Carl Barfield, a retired UF entomology professor, said he first came up with the idea to host BugFest.
“Nothing like this ever existed before,” he said.
Waite said the volunteers started planning the event in September 2015, when they came up with the theme.
The event became open to the public two years ago, Waite said. Before, it was an open house for the entomology department.
Families and Alachua County students attended the event, the 20-year-old said. The entomology club sent fliers to science teachers in schools, Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.
“For some reason, little kids really like bugs,” Waite said. “There is no reason why we can’t foster the interest in entomology.”
Waite said he hopes events like this get rid of negative perceptions of insects.
“If we don’t expose kids to bugs early, we get the reaction we get 90 percent of the time which is, ‘I am going to kill that thing,’” he said.
Katherine Tran, a UF environmental engineering senior, tasted hummus made out of mealworms.
“It was nothing too weird, actually,” the 23-year-old said. “You should do it just once for the experience.”
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Michael Gonzalez, a graduate student in the UF department of entomology and nematology, holds a Madagascar hissing cockroach at the entomology BugFest on Saturday morning in Steinmetz Hall.
