- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"We will be celebrating the diversity of moths and making moth-inspired cards in advance of Mother's Day," said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. "We'll have a cloth and light set-up to show people how moths are collected and we will have displays about the differences between moths and butterflies."
Most moths are nocturnal, unlike butterflies, which fly during the day. Moths of all sizes, shapes, colors and patterns will be displayed.
One of the moths displayed may well be one of the smallest moths in the world. Bohart Museum senior museum scientist Steve Heydon was sorting through his collection of unmounted insects from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, central Africa, when he noticed a moth about 1mm long, the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
The moth is a new species, yet to be described, Heydon said. “We don't even know what genus it is. We are guessing it is a Nepticulidae since this family contains the smallest moths. Their caterpillars are leafminers--they actually live between the top and bottom layers of a leaf, eating out the middle.”
“It has a wing span of 2 to 2.5mm,” Heydon said. “Insects that have a wing span of 3mm are considered tiny, but this one is really tiny—the smallest moth anyone ever seems to have found.”
Heydon collected the moth in April of 2006 on an expedition to the village of Kikongo Mission, located about 45 minutes by air east of Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He caught the moth on forested land, near a river, in a Malaise trap, a mesh tentlike structure commonly used to trap flying insects such as flies and wasps.
Also at the open house, visitors can hold such live specimens as Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a rose-haired tarantula and walking sticks and browse the gift shop, which includes T-shirts, jewelry, insect nets, posters and books, including the newly published children's book, “The Story of the Dogface Butterfly,” written by UC Davis doctoral candidate Fran Keller and illustrated (watercolor and ink) by Laine Bauer, a 2012 UCD graduate.
The 35-page book, geared toward kindergartners through sixth-graders, also includes photos by naturalist Greg Kareofelas of Davis, a volunteer at the Bohart Museum. The book tells the untold story of the California dogface butterfly (Zerene eurydice), Keller said. Bauer's illustrations depict the life cycle of this butterfly and the children who helped designate it as the California state insect. The net proceeds from the sale of this book go directly to the education, outreach and research programs of the Bohart Museum. The book also can be ordered online.
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, a professor of entomology at UC Davis, houses a global collection of nearly 8 million insect specimens and is the seventh largest insect collection in North America. It is also the home of the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum.
Bohart officials schedule weekend open houses throughout the academic year. The museum's regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. The insect museum is closed to the public on Fridays and on major holidays. Admission is free.