RTPI Joins the High Allegheny Hemlock Conservation Partnership to Offer Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Early Detection Training
Although autumn is just beginning in Western New York and Pennsylvania, the winter season will soon be upon us. The colder months, November through March to be exact, are the best time of year to search the area’s forests for an invasive forest pest known as Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (HWA). HWA is an aphid-like insect, originating from Asia, which feeds off of the food storage cells below the needles of an Eastern Hemlock tree and hides itself under white woolly masses for protection. Within only a matter of 4-10 years an individual tree can succumb to an HWA infestation if left unnoticed. This...
Read MoreThe Nature of Halloween
This article by Dr. Scott Shalaway originally appeared in the Post-Journal on October 29th,2016. I thought it was a perfect piece to share given we are hosting a program on snakes, spiders and bats this week! Learn more about “Snakes, Spiders and Bats! Oh, My!” this Friday, October 26th. THE NATURE OF HALLOWEEN Halloween, as I recall, was a day for friends to scare each other with nature’s creepy crawlies – spiders, snakes and bats. And often those fears lasted a lifetime. We all know people who recoil at the sight of these critters. Spiders are probably the most notorious of the...
Read MoreRTPI will host Lawn of the Dead! Landscape Design Workshop October 26th
(RTPI) invites you to Lawn of the Dead! on Friday, October 26th, from 10:00am – 2:00pm. It has been said that if you compared the average American lawn to a desert, the desert would win easily with much greater life and species diversity. Keeping up a lawn is both a chore for you and harmful to all flora and fauna in the area. This special landscape design workshop will help you learn how to make your yard a haven for native and migrating wildlife. You will discover how your landscape choices as a homeowner can improve the health of our communities and provide essential pollinator...
Read MoreRTPI to host: Snakes, Spiders, and Bats! Oh, My!
The Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History invites you to join us for “Snakes, Spiders, and Bats! Oh, my!” on Friday, October 26th from 5:30-8:00 pm. The Buffalo Zoo’s education department will be on site from 5:30-6:30pm with their “Zoo Mobile” to introduce guests to an array snakes, bats and spiders, and from 6:30 to 8:00 three knowledgeable and passionate local biologists (Twan Leenders, Becky Nystrom, and Jonathan Townsend) will explore the causes and consequences of the common misconceptions surrounding these creatures that so many consider creepy. This seasonally appropriate...
Read MoreRTPI to Host Bird-Skinning Demonstration/Workshop 10/20/18
The bird specimens so artfully depicted in Alberto Rey’s ‘The Extinct Bird Project’ exhibition, now on view at RTPI, are stunning studies of lifeless creatures that will never again be seen in the wild. Some of the birds represented in Rey’s paintings have been dead for over a century, but their preserved bodies are still available for researchers – and artists – to study in the country’s natural history museums, including the Roger Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History (RTPI). These so-called ‘study skins’ are not taxidermy mounts, prepared with their aesthetic value in mind, but...
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