R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar: Glimpses of the Realm of Tiny Blind Beetles

Dr. Curt Harden takes the stage at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History on Monday, December 7, for a talk titled Glimpses of the Realm of Tiny Blind Beetles. He'll be spending the hour on the diversity of ground beetles that live in the shallow subterranean habitats of Appalachia—the kind of creatures that spend their lives just beneath the surface, out of sight and mostly unknown.

It's part of the R.W. Moriarty Science Seminar, the museum's dedicated speaker series for exploring nature, culture, and the future of life on Earth. The format is pretty straightforward: academic researchers, museum professionals, and other experts come in to talk about their work, and the audience gets to engage with them directly. This one is sponsored by Highmark.

If you're not familiar with the subject, ground beetles are a huge group of insects, and the ones that live underground in the Appalachian region have their own specific adaptations to a life in the dark. Harden will be walking through that diversity, so you'll get a look at how these beetles differ from one another and what their subterranean world is actually like. It's a niche corner of the natural world, and that's exactly the kind of thing the seminar is built for.

The talk runs from 12 PM to 1 PM in the Art Theater at the museum, 4400 Forbes Avenue in Pittsburgh, and it's also available online via Zoom if you can't make it in person. Admission is free, and you don't need a museum ticket to get in. So whether you're a bug person or just curious about what's happening under your feet, it's an easy one to drop into on a Monday lunch hour.