- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Just ask UC Davis entomology student Sol Wantz, who will present a talk on katydids (her favorite insect), grasshoppers and crickets at the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house, set from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, March 3 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. It's free and family friendly.
We remember a crab spider that also found a katydid "incredibly fascinating." Umm, make that "nutritious." The spider grabbed the katydid on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifola) in our garden, paralyzed it with a venomous bite, and then dragged it beneath the petals to eat it.
It's all about the cycle of life. Everything eats in the garden.
Sol Wantz triples as a curator intern at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, a student researcher in the lab of pollination ecologist and professor Neal Williams, and as president of the UC Davis Entomology Club.
“I'll be giving a overview of all of the major and most interesting--in my opinion--families of Orthoptera," she said. The order includes some 20,000 species worldwide.
Did you know that "the katydid genus Supersonus produces the highest frequency sound of any known animal, up to 150 kHz!" she asks. "For reference, humans can hear only between 0 and 20 kHz."
The Bohart Museum, directed by Professor Jason Bond, is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane. It houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a live petting zoo (Madagasgar hissing cockroaches, stick insects, tarantulas and more) and an insect-themed gift shop stocked with T-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, books, posters, jewelry and insect-collecting equipment.
For more information, access the Bohart website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Themed "Grasshoppers, Crickets and Katydids," the open house will take place from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, March 3 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. It's free and family friendly. Parking is also free.
UC Davis third-year entomology major Solea “Sol” Wantz, who triples as a curator intern at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, a student researcher in the lab of pollination ecologist and professor Neal Williams, and as president of the UC Davis Entomology Club, will discuss “Grasshoppers, Crickets and Katydids."
She'll deliver her presentation at 1 p.m., and questions and answers will follow. The venue: a classroom of the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, located next to the Bohart Museum.
“I'll be giving a overview of all of the major and most interesting--in my opinion--families of Orthoptera," she said. The order includes some 20,000 species worldwide.
A few factoids she related:
- The katydid genus Supersonus produces the highest frequency sound of any known animal, up to 150 kHz! For reference, humans can only hear between 0 and 20 kHz.
- The family Myrmecophilidae, the “ant-loving crickets” are tiny, wingless crickets that live only in ant nests. “We even have these here in Davis, but they're hard to find unless you're digging through ant colonies,” Wantz says.
- Jerusalem crickets, also known as "potato bugs," have a unique method of sound production. "Rather than using their wings (they are actually wingless, she says) or another sound-producing organ, these crickets thump their abdomen against the ground to produce a surprisingly loud noise. Their thumping patterns can be used to identify their species."
“It's actually a grasshopper defense mechanism!” Wantz says. “When under stress--usually when they are grabbed, especially around the thorax-- grasshoppers vomit a foul-smelling/tasting liquid to ward off whatever predator is attacking them.”
Orthoptera (in ancient Greece, “ortho” means "straight,” and “optera” means "wings") is an order that includes grasshoppers, crickets, locusts and katydids. Grasshopper belong to the suborder Caelifera, and crickets and katydids to Ensifera.
Wantz, who decided at age 6 that she wanted to become an entomologist, is currently re-curating and reorganizing the Bohart's collection of several thousand specimens of Orthoptera.
"After finishing my undergraduate degree at UC Davis, I aim to enter a graduate program, potentially to explore my newfound interest in systematics. Ultimately, I hope to become a professor of entomology and lead my own research lab. This appeals to me because it presents the opportunity to weave together my knowledge of wild bee ecology and conservation, love of Orthoptera and museum work, and emphasis on professional outreach and public engagement."
The Bohart Museum, directed by Professor Jason Bond, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a live petting zoo (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects, tarantulas and more) and an insect-themed gift shop stocked with T-shirts, hooded sweatshirts, books, posters, jewelry and insect-collecting equipment.
For more information, access the Bohart website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
She will speak at 4:10 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. Her seminar also will be virtual. The Zoom link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.
"Parasites often manipulate their hosts' behavior and physiology, resulting in detrimental effects on host fitness," Worthington says in her abstract. "The horsehair worm (Paragordius varius) is a long-lived parasite that infects arthropods, including the sand field cricket, Gryllus firmus. This parasite lives inside its host for upwards of 28 days and can grow as long as 30 cm, presenting a significant challenge for its host's own growth, survival, and reproduction."
"Here, we tested the ability of infected male crickets to invest in immunity, somatic growth, and reproductive structures," she noted. "We also compared courtship behaviors, calling abilities, and mating success rates between infected and healthy males to identify how host reproductive fitness is affected by this large, long-lived parasite. Our results demonstrate surprisingly few physiological trade-offs, yet preliminary research suggests a reproductive burden on infected males, where even when host male crickets are able to survive horsehair worm infection, they will likely suffer from significantly reduced lifetime reproductive fitness."
Seminar host is doctoral candidate Lindsey Mack of the laboratory of medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo. "Dr. Worthington was my undergraduate research advisor," said Mack, adding. "She studies reproduction/immune trade-offs in crickets. Currently, her work focuses on the reproductive costs of high parasitic loads in field crickets, but she has experience with stalk=eyed flies, rhinoceros beetles, horsehair worms, and many other organisms. Generally, she is interested in wild sexually selected morphologies and behaviors."
"Additionally, she teaches at a religiously affiliated, primarily undergraduate institution (Creighton is a private Jesuit research university) and would be a great person to talk to about this type of career," Mack said. A pre-seminar coffee takes place from 3:30 to 4:10 p.m. in 158 Briggs.
Worthington, who joined Creighton's Department of Biology in the fall of 2016, holds a bachelor's degree in biology from the University of South Dakota (USD), and also received her master's degree at USD, studying the anti-predator behaviors of stalk-eyed flies and managing a long-term project dedicated to conserving the federally endangered Hine's Emerald dragonfly.
Worthington completed her doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology at Iowa State University, researching mating behavior in field crickets. She then transitioned into a postdoctoral fellowship at Washington State University where she worked on the development of sexually selected weapons in rhinoceros beetles and the hormonal mechanisms mediating wing polymorphism in crickets.
"Broadly, I am fascinated by bizarre morphologies and behaviors that are the result of sexual selection," Worthington says on her website. "Specifically, I am interested in the functional and physiological costs of these traits. I focus on trade-offs between reproduction and immunity, but also investigate topics such as sperm competition, the benefits of polyandry, and the molecular/hormonal mechanisms responsible for life-history tradeoffs. I have worked with a diverse array of invertebrate taxa (stalk-eyed flies, jumping spiders, dragonflies, crayfish, snails, and rhinoceros beetles), but currently focus my research on Gryllus firmus crickets. One particular interest is how individuals respond to long-term parasitic infections by the horsehair worm Paragordius varius, and how this infection impacts life-long fitness in its host."
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's winter seminars are held on Wednesdays at 4:10 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. All are virtual. Urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor, coordinates the seminars. (See schedule.) She may be reached at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu for technical issues.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Fact: At least 80 percent of those attending the Bohart Museum of Entomology's open house on entomophagy ate one or more insects--a cricket, an earthworm or a mealworm. The diners ranged in age from a 9-month-old girl to senior citizens.
Some came back for more--especially the mealworms and earthworms, said Bohart associate Emma Cluff. The crickets? Not so much.
A two-year-old from Dixon happily munched everything given to him. "He'll eat anything," his mother said.
Various companies, including Hotlix, Exo and Chirps Chips, provided the samples.
Besides eating insects, visitors asked questions about entomophagy and handled insects from the petting zoo, which includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks or stick insects, and tarantulas.
They also made buttons proclaiming "I Ate a Bug at the Bohart."
A display, titled "Bug Buffet," drew widespread interest: "Have you ever eaten ant pancakes or scorpion scaloppini? Well, eating bugs (entomophagy) is a lot more common than you might think. All round the world, people eat delicious and nutritious insect delicacies."
The dishes mentioned on the display:
- Locust Biscuits, featuring the brown locust, Locustana pardalina
- Mexican Caviar, starring the giant water bug, Abedus herberti
- Termite a la Carte, featuring termites, order Isoptera
- Maguey Worm Tacos, with Maguey worms, family Megathymidae
- Raw Cossid Moths, starring the larvae of the cossid moth, Xyleutes leucomochia
- Fried Pupae, presenting the pupae of the silkworm moth, Bombix mori
The next Bohart Museum open house, themed Parasitoid Palooza!, is on Saturday, Oct. 19 from 1 to 4 p.m. It is free and family friendly. The museum is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Drive.
"An insect parasitoid is a species whose immatures live off of an insect host, often eating it from the inside out," said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum. "It is part of their life cycle and the host generally dies."
The late UC Davis entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007), founder of the Bohart Museum, researched Strepsiptera, or twisted-wing parasites, for his doctorate in 1938. Both the Bohart Museum and an entire family of Strepsiptera, the Bohartillidae, are named in his honor.
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis professor of entomology, houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It is home to the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. It also maintains a year-around gift shop, which is stocked with T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.
The insect museum is open to the public Mondays through Thursdays from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m., except on holidays. More information on the Bohart Museum is available on the website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu or by contacting (530) 752-0493 or bmuseum@ucdavis.edu. (See list of open houses for the 2019-2020 academic year.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Add an innovative project involving insects.
Add three talented instructors: Diane Ullman, professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and lecturers Gale Okumura and Morissa Rubin of the UC Davis Department of Design
Result: an art exhibition, “The World of Insects: Paper, Tile, Branding and Packaging.” to take place from 6 to 8 p.m., Wednesday, June 6 in the Environmental Horticulture courtyard, located near Walter A. Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center on Alumni Drive. The event is free and open to the public.
The students will display their branding and packaging of their product for edible insects, said Okumura. "The design students were to create a pattern from the assigned insect, as well as design a logo for their branding, which was then applied to their packaging and business system," she said. "The packaging had be appealing to the consumer and in some sense, change behavior of the audience to buy edible insects by having appealing graphics."
Rubin said the silkscreen prints "focus on illustrations of the insect and its key features (entomology students) or graphic patterns derived from significant markings or features of the insect. Additionally design students have developed an insect related product and its entire graphic identity."
Bottom line: Prepare to enter an amazing world you may not have seen before--the incredible world of insects, coupled with innovative marketing and designs.
And maybe, just maybe, you'll add crickets to your diet?
If you haven't already?