By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Kay Fullerton becomes one with a giant bat head
at the Bishop Museum.
Don’t be afraid
of the dark
Bishop Museum's new show
By Burl Burlingame
explores places where the
sun doesn't shine
Star-BulletinLike the Oingo Boingo song says, we close our eyes and the world turns around again. Half of each "day" is actually night, and while we're sleeping, there's a whole other world happening, one in which the norm is darkness. "In the Dark" is the title of the new Bishop Museum show -- not how we feel about what's going on in the White House these days -- and it sheds some light on the subject.
Oops -- "shed some light" reveals our photon-patronizing brain-wiring, doesn't it?
"In the Dark" comes to us via the Cincinnati Museum Centers. We took a look around while the Bishop Museum exhibit wranglers were prying the modular displays out of the shipping containers.
"The idea is to show how animals adapted to live in darkness," explained exhibit trail boss Kay Fullerton. "Since they must use other senses to navigate in darkness, many animals have evolved unique abilities. For example, the pit viper senses minute variations in heat to get around."
"Humans have used technology to adapt to operating in the dark," said Fullerton. "And we're inventing things that are already being used by animals, like thermal imaging, sonar and radar."
The exhibit uses smoothly interactive displays, none of which belabors the message. "Short and to the point," said Fullerton.
Most of the exhibit is taken up with five walk-through environments that are all light-deprived:
A brooding, swampy North Carolina forest, with bobcats and skunks.
Another major area is a "keiki play" sequence -- including a hairy tunnel lined with swimming-pool "noodles" that act like an animal's sensitive whiskers, and a crawl-through play area which is supposed to imitate a mole's subterranean existence, and which looks like a McDonald's playground designed by Bart Simpson.
By Craig T. Kojima, Star-Bulletin
Museum staffer Sheryl Toda tries to fit pegs into odd-
shaped holes. She can't see inside the booth, but she can
be seen from outside, thanks to a night-vision camera.
One amusing booth plunges the patrons into near-total darkness as they try to fit shaped pegs into holes. We're not talking square pegs, round holes, here. They're more subtle than that.It's amusing because those outside the booth can watch the victims struggle in the dark via a night-vision camera. We tried it on Bishop Museum flack Sheryl Toda, who, curiously, kept her eyes closed in the dark, and whose high-pitched squeaks of dismay were plainly audible through the closed door.
Vertebrate Collection Manager Carla Kishinami was arranging "study skins" of Pacific-area bats in a display case, including the Marianas fruit bat that often winds up in the soup bowl, and our only bat, the Hawaiian Hoary.
Study skins are like floppy versions of the taxidermist's art. All the soft stuff under the skin is removed, and it's packed with cotton. "In the old days, the skins were also soaked in mercury chloride or arsenic to kill anything chomping on it," said Kishinami. These days the skins are kept in sterile environments and occasionally frozen to kill vermin.
Hawaii's in-the-dark animals include our only snake --
"Looks like a worm, acts like a snake," explained Fullerton -- a bleached wold spider and a tiny plant hopper that lives among roots. "A pleat on the hopper's abdomen vibrates on the roots, like plucking a ukulele string," said Fullerton. The resonance from the vibrations help guide the animal in the dark.
In the Dark
