"Better autograph that right now. That could be a valuable piece of art some day!"
So said an onlooker when youngsters were creating maggot art at the recent Bohart Museum of Entomology open house. The theme: "Insects: Life Stages."
Doctoral candidate Emma "Em" Jochim of the lab of Professor Jason Bond, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology--he is the director of the Bohart Museum--showed how to create maggot art masterpieces.
Use forceps to pick up a maggot. Dip it into non-toxic water-based paint, and drop it on a white piece of paper. Guide it or watch it crawl around. Voila! Maggot art.
In her research, Jochim studies spiders. Or, as she says on the Bond website, "I am interested in accurately assessing the evolutionary processes that catalyze species diversification, then apply that information to make informed decisions about taxonomy, conservation and resource management, along with gaining a broad understanding of the essential services these important organismal-based ecosystems provide."
Two of the youngsters participating in the family arts-and-crafts activity were Elliot Sauder, 7, and his sister Sutton, 9, of Sacramento. Their mother Dr. Candice Sauder, is a UC Davis Health surgeon.
What's the origin of maggot art? Forensic entomologist Rebecca O'Flaherty, a former doctoral candidate at UC Davis, coined the term "Maggot Art" in 2001 when she was a student at the University of Hawaii, and seeking a different outreach program activity to teach youngsters about insects. Not to hate them, she said, but to respect them and learn from them.
"I love my work and being able to share my love with so many people has truly been a joy," she told us in a 2007 interview. "I tend to target young elementary students, second and third graders, because I find that at that age, most children are enthusiastic, uninhibited and extremely open to new ideas. They haven't developed aversions to insects, and we're able to instill in them an appreciation for and interest in all organisms, no matter how disgusting those organisms may be perceived to be."
Maggot art is now an annual activity hosted by the Department of Entomology and Nematology at Briggs Hall during the campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day. It also takes place occasionally at a Bohart Museum open house.
At the Bohart open house, some 300 visitors learned about the life stages of insects, including dragonflies, bumble bees, blue orchard bees and mosquitoes. They handled the walking sticks from the live petting zoo, admired the carnivorous plants from the UC Davis Entomology Club, checked out the butterflies in the Lepidoptera collection staffed by curator Jeff Smith and Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas,and learned about mosquitoes from Luz Maria Robles, public information officer, Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control (fightthebite.net)
The next open house will be "Moth Night" on Saturday, July 12 from 7 to 11 p.m. A blacklighting setup with ultralighting will be displayed outside the museum to observe night-flying insects. John De Benedictis, better known as “The Moth Man,” traditionally sets up the display. Inside, visitors can learn about moths from Lepidoptera collection curator Jeff Smith and fellow Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas. All open houses are free and family friendly.
Public walk-in hours are Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 1 to 4:30 p.m. More information is available on the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu/ or by emailing bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
The Bohart Museum, founded in 1946 by UC Davis entomology professor Richard Bohart, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens. Bond, the Bohart Museum director, is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in the Department of Entomology and Nematology and associate dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
For more information on the Bohart Museum, access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
