Biodiversity
This is my second posting that takes a closer look at some of the critters that share our spaces. Here I examine one of our most common household guests, the carpet beetle. The larvae look like tiny, furry, ‘caterpillars’.

Larva of a carpet beetle, family Dermestidae, also known as skin or hide beetles. Drawing: copyright ROM.
After our recent post about mouse-eating frogs, Burton Lim of the mammalogy department, one of the ROM’s bat experts, decided to fight back for the mammals. Behold Trachops cirrhosus, the frog-eating bat!
On June 11 and 12, the Keenan Family Gallery of Hands-on Biodiversity hosted our Bee Appreciation Day. Visitors from far and wide swarmed to the gallery’s beehive to get the buzz on the new bee colony from our very own Queen Bee, Janine, the gallery’s beekeeper (and I promise I will stop making bee puns now).




