- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Do you have uninvited guests, or pests, in your home? No, not the two-legged kind--the ones with six or more legs.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology will host an open house, “Uninvited Guests: Common Pests Found in the Home” from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 19 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. The family friendly event is free and open to the public.
“People attending can bring samples of anything they find in their pantries or their closets,” said Tabatha Yang, education and public outreach coordinator.
The pests can include cockroaches, carpet beetles, termites, flies/fruit flies, cellar spiders, earwigs, house centipedes, and pantry pests, such as moths and beetle that invade flour and cornmeal.
“We are not addressing the parasites,” she said. “We have a special day for that on Jan. 22 when the theme is “Parasite Palooza: Botflies, Fleas and Mites, Oh My!”
Pantry pests can include the warehouse beetle (Trogoderma variabile); sawtoothed grain beetle (Oryzaephilus surinamensis); merchant grain beetle (O. mercator); confused flour beetle (Tribolium confusum); the red flour beetle (T. castaneum); drugstore beetle (Stegobium paniceum) and the cigarette beetle (Lasioderma serricorne).
A children's arts and crafts activity, zeroing in on uninvited guests in the home, will also take place.
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis professor of entomology, is a world-renowned insect museum that houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It also maintains a live “petting zoo,” featuring walking sticks, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and tarantulas. A gift shop, open year around, includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.
The Bohart Museum's regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. The museum is closed to the public on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and on major holidays. Admission is free.
More information on the Bohart Museum is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.