Is it "Come for the spiders--and stay for the bees and butterflies?"
Or is it "Come for the bees and butterflies--and stay for the spiders?"
Actually, you can have it all three ways!
When the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, hosts an open house, "Eight-Legged Encounters" from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, March 15, the focus will be on arachnids, but butterfly specimens and images of native bees will be there, too.
Visitors will see scorpions, tarantulas, vinegaroons, whip spiders and trapdoor spiders. They'll learn how spiders spin silk, they'll watch arachnids being fed, and they can look through microscopes. And they can craft arachnids using model clay, said the two co-chairs, doctoral candidate Emma "Em" Jochim of the Jason Bond lab and Felix Duley, a UC Davis entomology alumnus who is an intern at the Bohart Museum. The petting zoo, featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches and stick insects, also will be open.
The event takes place in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building and hallway, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis. It'sl free and family friendly. Parking is also free.
If spiders aren't high on your list of favorite critters, you can view the Bohart Museum's global collection of butterfly specimens, to be shown by curator Jeff Smith and fellow Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas.
And if you love native bees--who doesn't?--check out the Bohart Museum's newly installed native bee gallery exhibit in the Academic Surge hallway. The images are the work of community scientist and conservation photographer Krystle Hickman, author of the newly published--and highly acclaimed--"The ABCs of California's Native Bees," (Heydey Books). Hickman, a National Geographic Explorer, TEDx speaker and native bee educator based in Los Angeles, spent a decade photographing California's native bees.
Says Heydey: "Meant for all curious readers, this collection of bee stories—one for each letter of the alphabet, matching the first letter of a bee’s scientific name—will leave you both wowed and compelled to help save these fascinating beings and the lands they call home."
Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum, describes Hickman's work as "incredible." Scores of pink sticky notes mark her well-thumbed copy of Hickman's book, which features 26 species, from the Agile Longhorn Bee to the Zone-tailed Banded-Mining Bee. Hickman has also published a deck of flash cards spotlighting 42 native bee species.
Of the some 3000 native bee species in western North America, more than 1600 reside in habitats in California. Indeed, the late UC Davis Distinguished Emeritus Professor Robbin Thorp detected and identified more than 80 different native bee species alone in the UC Davis Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road. It's a half-acre pollinator demonstration garden maintained by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and is open daily from dawn to dusk. Free admission.
HIckman's work is receiving national and international attention. She addressed the 2024 United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP16) in Colombia, and has lectured at Harvard, UC Irvine, UCLA, and other colleges. Learn more about her work at beesip.com. Her display at the Bohart Museum will continue at least through May 16, the date of the "Buzz Words" open house.
The Bohart Museum's remaining open houses of the academic year:
- Saturday, April 18, UC Davis Picnic Day. The Bohart scientists will be at Briggs Hall from 1 to 4 p.m.
- Saturday, May 16, "Buzz Words: Insects in Literature," 1 to 4 p.m., Bohart Museum
Director of the Bohart Museum is Professor Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schindler Endowed Chair of Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and the executive associate dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Bond also is the president of the American Arachnological Association.
More information on the Bohart Museum is available on the website or by contacting bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
Cover image: Some of the native bee images by Krystle Hickman on display at the Bohart Museum of Entomology.