Zoo InternQuest is a career exploration program for high school students. For more information see the Zoo InternQuest Journals. For more photos see the Zoo InternQuest Photo Journal.

Ever wonder if there really are girls out there who love bugs? Hissing cockroaches, phorid flies, and flower mantises are the center of Paige Howorth’s and Kelli Walker’s lives. But of course, not limited to those three. There are 30 to 40 different species of bugs at the Zoo’s Insect house, and these well-educated, highly trained women of entomology spend day after day making sure all the bugs are happy and healthy.

Ms. Walker’s bug fascination started in Washington D.C. when she held her first hissing cockroach. She knew she wanted to work with animals, so she spent a few years volunteering in D.C. (where she held the cockroach), then moved to California for a job at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles (recognized for its incredible Insect Zoo) then finally to the San Diego Zoo. Ms. Howorth was stung by her bug fascination as a pre-med college student, starting with a course in zoology at the University of Kansas, then changing her path that eventually sent her off to the University of Costa Rica to be really close to some of the most amazing insects in the world. What an education!

For a vertebrate, Ms. Howorth has deep respect for the invertebrates that occupy this planet. Maybe we should too, given the fact that only .04% of the identified species on Earth are mammals like us. The rest of the creatures are all invertebrates like spiders, slugs, millipedes, scorpions, crustaceans, beetles, and the millions of others I can’t even begin to list.

Dana, Careers Team

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