Rarely would an event including live bees and ants be advertised as “fun for the whole family,” but that’s exactly how ASU’s School of Life Sciences marketed its Social Insect Science Expo.

Children, students and adults alike swarmed the table exhibits featuring a variety of insects in the Dorrance Auditorium at the Botanical Gardens Saturday night for the event.

Elizabeth Cash, a doctoral biology student, ran one exhibit to represent the “Ask a Biologist” Web site run by ASU’s School of Life Sciences.

“I’m here representing the younger population that might be interested in science and giving them resources,” Cash said. “It offers activities for kids like [building] your own ant farm, where they can recycle an old music CD case and at the same time have fun doing science.”

The event was an opportunity for attendees to get an up-close look at insects and the research by ASU scientists and research students like Rebecca Clark.

“We spend a whole lot of our time focused on trying to understand something, but there aren’t a lot of people around,” Clark said. “It’s really important to bring that information out where people can ask questions and see why we are so excited about it.”

The event also featured Raymond Mendez, a self-proclaimed “insect wrangler” and animal exhibit designer, who spoke to attendees about his work with the movie industry, including wrangling the moths from the movie “Silence of the Lambs”.

Cash said the expo provided an opportunity for researchers to see what others are working on. Her interest is in ant behavior.

“My interest comes from a certain desire to anthropomorphize this and see how humans interact socially and understand the differences but also the similarities and connections to how behaviors are similar across different organisms,” Cash said.

Mendez said he disagreed with some of the parallels researchers tried to draw between humans and insects, calling it a “kind of silliness.” However insects do provide an interesting opportunity to look at the world from a different perspective, he said.

“I like being a human. I don’t want to be an ant,” Mendez said. “On the other hand, the thing that is fun about this is that when you look at the environment, it opens your mind to curiosity about what is going on in the world around you.”

Reach the reporter at michelle.parks@asu.edu