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"My name is John Wible, and I'm the curator of mammals at
the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. We're doing a 24 hour bio-blitz,
which is a count of all the species that are in a certain area."
"It gives you some information as to what's living the park.
There's a certain amount of scientific validity to what we're doing.
But it's more of an educational opportunity for the public so they
can find out what sorts of things are in their backyard, and maybe
have a better appreciation for that."
 "I'm
Sue McLaren, I'm the collection manager in the section of mammals.
A lot of people,me included, just thought a mouse is a mouse and
not there's as much diversity."
"There are these pretty little jumping mice, red backed voles.
I'm kind of hopeful that we get some shrews running around out there
tonight. I mean it's good shrew habitat, and if the dampness brings
some of the insects out under the leaf litter, it'll be good."
"With the rain, it's going to be weather for slugs and ducks
I think. My name is Tim Pearce. I'm a curator of mollusks at the
Carnegie Museum of Natural History."
"You won't find any native slugs in your garden. All of the
ones in your garden are introduced species. We do have native slugs,
but you'll find those out in the woods, and this is the really vicious
one. There was an article in Natural History a number of years ago,
and it was talking about the slugs biting each other and thrashing
their tails. And it just sounded like a real slug fest."
"I have pet snails and I have pet slugs. I feel like if my
house was burning down, my snail would get out by itself and it
wouldn't come and save me, but the slug would try to drag me out
of the house to save me from the burning fire, so they really do
have personalities."
 "My
name is Bob Androw, and I'm scientific preparator with the Carnegie
Museum of Natural History. We're using a beating sheet which is
just a square piece of fabric that we put underneath foliage or
dead branches and such."
"We kind of shake the foliage with a stick just to knock out
any hiding organisms, so... especially on a day like this where
it's kind of cool, it's been raining overnight, things are wet,
they're just hunkered down, hiding in the vegetation, and this way
we find all the critters that you can't just walk up and look at."
"There's some sort of a species of plant louse, and a small
species of weevil, here's a jumping spider…"
 "We'll
take the insects back, we'll break them down into major groups.
We may not know at the end exactly what we've taken, as far as knowing
the exact names on every species, but we'll be able to identify
that species A is different from B and C and such, so we'll get
a count on the number of different species."
Invertebrate zoology curator, John Rawlins: "I think the take
home message really is thatthere is an astonishing diversity of
things in our backyards. These are strange animals and strange things
that we associate with other places and other climates and other
habitats. And in actual fact they're a remarkable part of our lifeway
and our environments right here in Pittsburgh."
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