Summer of Springs: Meet the Beetles

All these insects died long before any of us were born. 

Herkimer - they named the giant ceramic rhinoceros beetle Herkimer. 

I passed the ubiquitous statue n Rock Creek Canyon Road too many times during the museum’s offseason. 

This time , I passed Herkimer beetle, who stood sentinel over Colorado Route 115 and heralded the May Natural History Museum down a thin road along Rock Creek Canyon. 

Colorado Springs has numerous museums and I haven’t visits most of them. Not all subject matters interest. But one always caught my attention. 

With Herkimer the goliath beetle standing along the road, the insect museum might have the best lure of any museum in southern Colorado. 

The dry climate brought the unusual collection here. John May collected more than 7,000 insects and arachnids from six continents from 1902 until his death in 1956. May collected them all himself, a hobby that took off when he served in the Boer War in South Africa. 

The third and fourth generations of the May family continue to run the museum. May had the wisdom to buy up water rights for his campground, and sale of the water rights in the early 2000s allowed the family to keep the museum. 

With a modern gift shop and campstore for the Golden Eagle, the museum and its little film room feel mostly unchanged from the 1950s. That suits the collection. Just as the insects are frozen as May set them, the museum seems best if staked to the time of its creation. Some specimens are unique and have not been collected or seen outside May’s collection. 

The family was approached about selling parts or all of the collection, but decided against breaking it up. The unique and unusual draw interest from natural history museums around the world.  But the May museum’s most famous offer came from Walt Disney himself, who wanted the collection for Disneyland in the 1950s. 

When the family found out John May would get no credit for his 50-year effort, the collection would fall under the Disney name, they turned him down. 

May operated a traveling collection for years but settled down in Colorado Springs due to the dry climate. At the time, the little museum and campsite down on Rock Creek Canyon was a roadside curiosity between the Springs and Canon City. 

The city has grown up, but the museum remains. After the television special, I immersed myself in the rows of insect displays that filled a wood-paneled room. It’s overwhelming really. I immediately realized I might need to return. 

Some cases hold a few giant moths, beetles or butterflies. Some might house several dozen tiny species. It all comes a little too fast due to the enormity of the May collection. Perhaps the walking sticks stunned me the most. I had seen these insects that camouflage themselves with their twig-like bodies, and limbs. Several collected by May were thick, nearly a foot long, and would have found hiding much harder if they weren’t native to the jungles of New Guinea. 

Then came legions of moths, from specimens that barely fit on the pin to hand-sized giants. I have seen luna moths, but those felt small by comparison with the largest butterflies netted a century and a hemisphere away. Moths get the short shrift compared to their colorful butterfly cousins. But both are vital parts of their ecosystems. 

May’s collection tools and tactics also get highlighted. Collecting and pinning insects might curious or even sadistic in the 21st century. But I believe May’s hobby allows us to visit inaccessible points on the globe, forests and jungles that might have become victim to the worldwide decline in wilderness areas. 

Some insects were harvested locally, including the sphinx moths that I have encountered among my more colorful garden flowers. But this was a global collection. I could see the family love for what their ancestor accomplished. We might not hunt insects this way in the 21st century, but John May brought about many discoveries, catching insects most of us would never see otherwise and some that have not been caught by anyone since.  

The holiday afternoon grew thick with campers checking in. The oblivious folks more or less led me on my way. 

 I couldn’t leave without taking a pilgrimage to Herkimer’s hill. Boy Scouts cut a short trail from a rustic lot to the giant beetle. I had to get close. I feared snakes, but I only got grasshoppers and wasps. Herkimer never budged, his larger-than-life jaws frozen in time, ready to delight more generations of people passing by.

Clearly I was delighted.