- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Bzdyk is garnering widespread news coverage for discovering a 15-million-year-old dolphin skull along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Calvert County, Maryland.
Bzdyk, a volunteer at the Calvert Marine Museum on Solomons Island, said she was combing the shores along the Calvert Cliffs on Saturday, Aug. 5, when she noticed what appeared to be a two-foot-long fossil bone in the shallow water.
It turned out to be a fossil from the Miocene Epoch, the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period. The Miocene epoch extends from about 23.03 to 5.333 million years ago.
Stephen Groff, manager of the Calvert Marine Museum's fossil collection, described it as “a really impressive find,” noting that “it's rare to find a skull in such good condition.”
Bzdyk estimated it will probably take a few months for her to clean the silt and clay from the fossil and prepare it for permanent public display at the museum. Visitors to the museum (open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) are watching her clean the fossil.
“I've been fossil hunting for about a year and a half and I have thousands of shark teeth and other things in my collection,” said Bzdyk, who received her master's degree in entomology from UC Davis in 2012, studying with UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology. At UC Davis, "I focused on a taxonomic revision of the subgenus Litomegachile leafcutter bees with a description of a new species and a key to current species."
Bzdyk returned to SMCM in 2016 as a visiting instructor of biology. She served as an adjunct faculty member until May 2019.
Her friends says she has an eagle eye for discoveries. She credits her entomological training with that. "Many years in entomology didn't hurt!"
NBCWashington.com headlined her fossil discovery as "Big Win: Woman Finds 15 Million-Year-Old Dolphin Skull Along Chesapeake Bay."
Mike Murillo of WTOP News, which serves the Washington, D.C., area, said that the "Dolphin fossil found in Calvert County could help 'write the books' on ancient marine mammals...It is not uncommon to find fossils from marine mammals. Dolphin skulls are typically found twice a year in southern Maryland. But this find, according to Groff, stands to be the most intact of the finds. It could also turn out to be a species that was previously not known about."
In addition to her interests in biology, entomology and paleontology, Bzdyk enjoys incorporating her scientific illustration and photography skills in her work. She served as a scientific illustration intern at the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2008.
Bzdyk shares her interests in her blog, "Sentimental Entomologist" (Thoughts about insects, birds, nature and life) at http://sentimentalentomologist.blogspot.com/.
In her blog profile, she describes herself as: "I have always loved insects and I studied them in graduate school. Bees, to be precise. I focused my thesis on Litomegachile, a subgenus of Megachile leafcutter bees. I discovered a new species of bee, and published one paper on these bees before I hung up my scientist hat to become a stay at home mom. But that won't stop insects from finding their way into my life."
She also maintains an Instagram account on her discoveries at https://instagram.com/hastalishunter.
Bzdyk is a 2010 alumna of the globally recognized The Bee Course, an annual 10-day workshop sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and held at the Southwestern Research Station, Portal, Ariz. One of her instructors was noted bee authority Robbin Thorp 1933-2019), UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology. Thorp and Professor Neal Williams of the Department of Entomology and Nematology served on her guidance committee, along with research entomologist Tom Zavortink of the Bohart Museum.
Her husband, Troy Townsend, an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at SMCM, received his doctorate in inorganic chemistry in 2013 from UC Davis. He studied biology and chemistry at SMCM, obtaining his undergraduate degree in 2007. The couple has two daughters, ages 6 and 9.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's an annual workshop held at the Southwestern Research Station (SWRS) in Portal, Ariz. for conservation biologists, pollination ecologists, and other biologists "who want to gain greater knowledge of the systematics and biology of bees," according to organizer Jerome Rozen Jr. of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), New York.
AMNH launched the course at SWRS in 1999. This year's nine-day workshop will take place Aug. 25-Sept. 4.
Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, has been teaching at the workshop since 2002. Thorp, who received his doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley, served on the UC Davis faculty from 1964 to 1994, but although he officially "retired" in 1994, he never really did. He continues his research, writings and bee identification at his office in the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis.
Frankly, we at UC Davis don't know what we'd do without him. Thorp maintains a massive educational, research and public service work that brings national and worldwide pride and distinction to UC Davis. No one can say “pollinators” without thinking of Thorp. For example, MacArthur Foundation Fellow Claire Kremen, a conservation biologist with the UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, said she would never have attempted her much-cited Yolo County pollinator project without his expertise. He not only helped develop the protocol, but he identifies all the species—about 60,000 of them since 1999.
Robbin Thorp will turn 80 years young during The Bee Course. Shhh--don't tell anyone. (P.S., he says it's okay to "tell.")
Thorp and his colleague John Ascher, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore and research associate at the American of Natural History, New York, and a key scientist at BugGuide.Net, were working today at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis. We captured a quick image of them (below).
Ascher, who received his doctorate in entomology from Cornell University, has taught at The Bee Course since 2004.
The Bee Course textbook is The Bee Genera of North and Central America, Michener, C.D., R.J. McGinley and B.N. Danforth, 1994, Smithsonian Press.
Why in Portal, Ariz.? It's one of the richest bee faunas in North America.
All the instructors are volunteers. In addition to Rozen, Thorp and Ascher, the 2013 team includes Stephen Buchmann of Tucson, who received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis; James H. Cane and Terry Griswold of the USDA-ARS Bee Biology and Systematics Lab at Utah State University, Logan; Lawrence Packer of York University, Toronto, Canada; and UC Davis alumnus Ronald McGinley of Dewey, Ill. (he obtained his doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley and then worked at Harvard University and the Smithsonian before joining the Illinois Natural History Survey).
The participants, usually around 22, come from all over the world. They will return home with a collection of properly labeled bee specimens--and a comprehensive knowledge about bees.
From the website: The course "emphasizes the classification and identification of more than sixty bee genera of North and Central America (both temperate and tropical), and the general information provided is applicable to the global bee fauna. Lectures include background information on the biologies of bees, their floral relationships, their importance in maintaining and/or improving floral diversity, inventory strategies, and the significance of oligolecty (i.e., taxonomic floral specialization). Field trips acquaint participants with collecting and sampling techniques; associated lab work provides instruction on specimen identification, preparation and labeling."
And the course significance: "The field of pollination ecology explores the reproductive biology of plants in general, including the biotic and abiotic agents associated with pollination and seed-set. This is of interest for basic research and understanding of world communities and also has significant practical impact as it relates to pollination of economically important crop plants, to survival of endangered plants, and to plant reproduction in threatened habitats. Pollen is moved between receptive flowers by wind, water, birds, bats, beetles, flies, etc., but the 20,000 species of bees worldwide play a dominant role in the sexual reproduction of most plant communities. This course will empower students with 1) the confident use of The Bee Genera of North and Central America, 2) an appreciation for the biological diversity of bees, and 3) sufficient background to learn more about bees and investigate pollination and conservation problems with greater insight."
Said Thorp: "It is a great experience for students to interact with instructors and especially with their peers from around the world. Instructors all donate their time to teach in the course, but benefit from the chance to get together with colleagues and a new cohort of interesting students each year. Every class is different. that is, it takes on its own personality, and each student brings something new and different to the mix."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
In costume.
Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, located at 1124 Academic Surge on California Drive, UC Davis campus, knows that a Halloween party isn't a party without the appropriate butterfly, ladybug and honey bee costumes.
After all, the museum houses a global collection of more than seven million specimens (and some live insects, including Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas).
The Bohart Museum Society party, held tonight (Thursday), drew scores of costumed folks who enjoyed the camaraderie, the refreshments, the gift shop, the specimens and the "live petting zoo." Toward the end, they took time to bash a mosquito pinata, made by Brittany Nelms, a PhD student within the Entomology Graduate Group with a designated emphasis in Vectorborne Diseases. William Reisen of the Center for Vectorborne Diseases, serves as her major professor.
Mosquitoes are meant to be bashed.
UC Davis entomology graduate student Emily Bzdyk arrived as a butterfly, with her face intricately painted. Entomology graduate student Danielle Wishon, who studies with forensic entomologist Bob Kimsey and won the 2011 UC Davis Undergraduate Award in Entomology, selected a maggot theme.
Forensic entomologist Bob Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology dressed in a ghillie suit. And his wife, Lynn, the museum director and professor of entomology? She followed through with an Alcatraz theme (Bob does fly research on Alcatraz and is known as the "Fly Man of Alcatraz.")
When it was all over, Honey Lovers candy donated by Gimbal's Fine Candies of San Francisco, spilled out of the split mosquito pinata as the eager crowd dashed for the goodies.
On Sunday, Oct. 30, the Bohart Museum will host a free pre-Halloween open house for the public. It will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. Prizes will be awarded to the best insect costumes (youth and adult divisions) and the best insect tattoo.
And, oh, yes, there will be another blood-sucking mosquito to bash in the form of a pinata.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
We're in the midst of a housing crisis, so why not build a 30-unit, high-rise condo in your yard?
No, not for people--for native bees.
We just installed a bee condo for leafcutting bees (Megachile spp.), on a five-foot high pole overlooking catmint, lavender and salvia. The "housing development" is actually a wooden board drilled with small holes to accommodate our tiny tenants. Comfy and convenient. Rooms with a view. No housing permits or EIR required. Rent-free, mortgage-free.
Leafcutting bees, aka leafcutter bees, are about the size of a honey bee but darker, with the characteristic light-banded abdomens. They are important pollinators.
Why are they called leafcutter bees? Because the females cut leaf fragments to construct their nests to raise their brood. In nature, they build their nests in soft, rotted wood or in the pithy stems of such plants as roses, raspberries, sumac and elderberry.
Unlike honey bees, which are social, the leafcutting bee is a solitary nesting bee. She provisions her leaf-lined nest with nectar and pollen, lays an egg, and seals the cell before leaving.
Commercially made bee condos are available at beekeeping supply stores or on the Internet. You can make or buy a board with different sized-holes so other native bees, such as blue orchard bees, aka mason bees, receive a "home, sweet home," too, and deliver pollinator services.
And enable you to tell your family and friends that you're a "bee landlord" or beekeeper.
The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation offers tips on building bee condos on its website and in its publications, including Farming for Bees: Guidelines for Providing Native Bee Habitat on Farms.
If you don't want bee boards housing your tenants, you can provide straws or hollow bamboo stems.
At the UC Davis Department of Entomology, doctoral candidate Emily Bzdyk is doing research on leafcutter bees. "Basically I'm doing a revision of the subgenus Litomegachile, part of the large genus Megachile, which includes leafcutter and resin bees," she said. "They are native to North America. My goals are to find out how many and what the species are in Litomegachile, and find out as much as I can about their biology, or how they make a living."
"I also want to identify clearly what the boundaries between the species are, or how to tell them apart from one another," said Bzdyk, whose major professor is Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology. "Litomegachile are very common and hard-to-identify to species, and I feel they deserve attention."
Bzdyk noted that some Megachile are used in commercial alfalfa production. The alfalfa leafcutter bee, native to Europe, is used for commercial pollination of alfalfa, she said. "The Litomegachile is probably very closely related."
The alfalfa growers erect giant bee condos in their fields to draw bees to their plants.
With home gardeners, the effect is the same.
If you build them, they will come.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you’re a first-year graduate student in entomology, you spend much of your time buried in books or conferring with your major professor.
Emily Bzdyk, who is pursuing her doctorate in entomology at UC Davis, does that, too--and more.
She's heavily involved in art.
Two of her art works will be shown at the “Bees at The Bee” art show from 3 to 8 p.m., Saturday, May 8 in the Sacramento Bee’s open courtyard, 2100 Q St. The event, sponsored by The Bee, features bee-themed art from talented artists within a 12-county area.
Art show coordinator Laurelin Gilmore of Sacramento said a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the art will benefit honey bee research at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis.
In other words, the artists are donating to UC Davis honey bee research.
Emily Bzdyk, a native of Long Island, N.Y. who grew up in Round Hill, Va., said she's always loved insects. “I raised caterpillars and other bugs as a kid.”
In high school, she helped monitor aquatic stream health, and led a team.
Then it was on to St. Mary’s College of Maryland, a public honors college, where she majored in biology and minored in studio art and environmental studies. Her senior thesis? A Guide to Native Plants of Historic St. Mary's City, which she also illustrated.Emily, now working on her doctorate of entomology at UC Davis, is researching “the revision and biological life history of Litomegachile, a subgenus of leafcutter bees found all across the United States."
She works closely with her major professor, Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor and vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, and with three other entomologists who form her guidance committee: Tom Zavortink, Robbin Thorp, and Neal Williams.
And art? Emily has pursued art all her life. She photographs insects (and other subjects), creates earrings, sculpts, paints and draws.
”I enjoy any artmaking process--really.”
At St. Mary’s College of Maryland, she honed her skills by enrolling in a scientific illustration course, and interned at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., where she completed a drawing of a beetle, for a new species description, for Alexander Konstantinov.
Last month she finished creating the illustrations for a beginning beekeeping book written by retired UC Davis apiculturist-professor Norman Gary. It will be published later this year.
The May 8 bee art show is Emily Bzdyk's next project. She contributed a framed 8x10 pen-and-ink drawing of a leafcutter bee, Megachile centuncularis, and a framed 8x10 photo, titled "Yellow Bee Face," of a male Valley carpenter bee.
Emily also will offer her bee earrings (below) at the art show--and maybe other items.
A salute to Sacramento Bee and artist Laurelin Gilmore for making this all happen--a benefit for the bees.