Identification. Collaboration. Camaraderie.

The scientists and butterfly/moth enthusiasts who gathered Saturday, Feb. 9 for the Northern California Lepidoptera  Society meeting in the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, did all that: identify specimens and engage in collaboration and camaraderie.

They ranged from those early in their career, to mid-point, to the height of their career, to retired.

The group meets for a mid-winter gathering once a year, alternating between the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis and the Essig Museum of Entomology at UC Berkeley.

Senior museum scientist Steve Heydon, Bohart associate John "Moth Man" DeBenedictis; and Jeff Smith, curator of the butterfly/moth section at the Bohart hosted the event, assisted by Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and Bohart associate and naturalist Greg Kareofelas. 

In their meeting notice, Heydon, DeBenedictis and Smith noted that those attending could bring specimens, photos, PowerPoint presentations "or slides from collecting trips and tales of collecting triumphs to share with others
and that "attending lepidopterists may be able to help you identify specimens and the museum collection will be open for yoour inspection."

Christopher Jason, a recent UC Davis graduate in environmental science, was there with his collection. In March he will head to Washington State University, the Vancouver, campus, to work as a technician in the lab of conservation biologist/associate professor Cheryl Schultz, who researches at-risk butterflies in Pacific Northwest Prariries. Or, as Schultz. writes on her website: "Human-caused changes in the earth's ecosystems are responsible for the decline and extinction of the world's biological diversity. In the Conservation Biology Research Group, we study the ecology of at-risk species in response to key drivers: habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, habitat degradation, invasive species, alteration of ecosystem process, and global climate change. Using a population-ecology lens, we use field and quantitative methods to address pivotal ecological questions. We seek to understand the relative contributions of individual, population and landscape-level processes to the population viability of endangered species as these processes interface with realistic conservation interventions. Our work largely uses at-risk butterflies in Pacific Northwest Prairies as a model system to address fundamental ecological questions while simultaneously tackling focal questions to guide on-the-ground practice."

Retired public health entomologist and Bohart associate Dick Meyer of Bakersfield, known as "the mosquito guy," was there. He recently retired as assistant manager of the Orange County Vector Control Agency. He did not bring any of his collection, but he did tell us that he has 225 drawers of insects at home, including 71 drawers of butterflies. "Did you know that the highest diversity of butterflies in the country is in Kern County?" he asked. Meyer, who holds a doctorate in entomology, studied with major professor Richard M. Bohart Jr., for whom the Bohart Museum is named.

Among those participating:

• Bohart associate Jerry Powell, emeritus director of the Essig Museum, and co-author of California Insects.
• Marc Epstein, senior insect biosystematist for the California Department of Food and Agriculture and author of the book, Moths, Myths and Mosquitoes: the Eccentric life of Harrison G. Dyer Jr.
• Kelly Richers, treasurer of the Lepitopterists Society and an affiliate of Essig Museum of Entomology who is also  afield associate with the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History and member of board of directors of the Wedge Entomological Research Foundation
• Lawrence "Larry" Allen of Calaveras County, author of A Field Guide to the West Coast Butterflies of the United States, one of the books available in the Bohart Museum's gift shop (he donated all sales of his book that day to the Bohart).
• Arthur Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology and author of Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento Valley Regions.
• Entomologist Rick Kelson, who directs the butterfly habitat at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, Vallejo
• Bohart associate Bill Patterson, former graduate student of Richard Bohart
• Rosser Garrison, research associate with the California State Collection of Arthropods, retired senior insect biosystematist, California Department of Food and Agriculture, and co-author of Dragonfly Genera of the New World: An Illustrated and Annotated Key to the Anisoptera
• Don Miller, professor at Chico State University who teaches entomology in the Department of Biological Sciences
• Ryan Hill, professor at University of Pacific, Stockton
• Chris Tenney,  retired educator from Pacific Grove
• Jeffrey Caldwell, known for his ecological restoration
• John Lane, one of first graduate students of Art Shapiro (Lane received his master's degree)
• Paul Johnson, biologist with the National Parks Service
• Hobbyist Jeff Baier of Napa
• Physician Val Albu of Fresno
• And many more...

At the last gathering in the Bohart, Kelly Richers, who compiles the California Moth Specimen Database, maintained at the Essig Museum since 1996 as a resource to better survey and understand California moths, said of the systematists:  "We're a dying breed." 

This year self-described "aspiring entomologist" Madison Cunha of Modesto attended with her mother, Christine Cunha. True to her love of insects, Madison wore a dress adorned with a beetle pattern.

Scientists say that 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 families and 46 superfamilies.

"The Lepidoptera are among the most successful groups of insects. They are found on all continents, except Antarctica, and inhabit all terrestrial habitats ranging from desert to rainforest, from lowland grasslands to mountain plateaus, but almost always associated with higher plants, especially angiosperms (flowering plants). Among the most northern dwelling species of butterflies and moths is the Arctic Apollo (Parnassius arcticus), which is found in the Arctic Circle in northeastern Yakutia, at an altitude of 1500 m above sea level. In the Himalayas, various Apollo species such as Parnassius epaphus have been recorded to occur up to an altitude of 6,000 miles above sea level."--Wikipedia.

Happy Presidents' Day.

It's day we honor not only George Washington and Abraham Lincoln but all the men (no women yet!) who have served as President of the United States.

"The federal holiday honoring Washington was originally implemented by an Act of Congress in 1879 for government offices in Washington  and expanded in 1885 to include all federal offices," according to Wikipedia. "As the first federal holiday to honor an American president, the holiday was celebrated on Washington's birthday under the Gregorian calendar, Feb. 22. On Jan. 1, 1971, the federal holiday was shifted to the third Monday in February by the Uniform Monday Holiday Act. This places it between February 15 and 21, which makes 'Washington's Birthday' something of a misnomer, since it never occurs on Washington's actual birthday, Feb. 22."

"A rough analog of this phenomenon can be seen in Commonwealth realms, where the reigning monarch's official birthday is celebrated without regard to their actual date of birth."

There you have it.

And speaking of monarchs and Presidents' Day, it's a good time to post a monarch on the American flag.   Danaus plexippus reigns supreme in the world of butterflies, in that it's arguably the most recognized butterfly.

The embattled monarch--some folks want to see it listed as threatened or endangered--will be the subject of a session hosted by the Environmental Defense Fund on Feb. 28 at the University of California, Davis. It's by invitation only. But one of the speakers is Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology.

Shapiro, who has monitored the entire butterfly faunas (including monarchs) at 10 locations along I-80 coordinator for more than four decades, just published a commentary in the Davis Enterprise headlined "So the Monarch Is Endangered--Now What?"

He began with "So the monarch butterfly is in trouble and various folks, including the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee, want California or the United States, or both, to declare it endangered or at least threatened (Bee editorial Feb. 5). Great, then what?

"The fact is, nobody can answer that question competently."

"There is no disputing the facts: Monarch butterfly populations in California have dropped catastrophically," he wrote. "Based on counts of adults overwintering along the coast, numbers have dropped from some 4.5 million in the 1980s to a mere 28,429 this year. At one site, Bolinas, numbers dropped 90 percent in one year from 12,360 in 2017 to 1,256 this year."

"But the decline has not been linear or monotonic, and it is very poorly understood."

He noted: "Conservation organizations are promoting lists of things private citizens and organizations can do to help “save the monarch.” The most-often-repeated one is to plant milkweed, its larval host plant. But there is absolutely no evidence that there is any milkweed shortage in California, let alone that such a shortage is driving monarch declines."

Shapiro went on to write that "there are huge holes in our knowledge of basic monarch biology, and those translate into our inability to say why monarchs are in decline."

Shapiro noted in his commentary that "We have been stuck with using the winter censuses, which are easy to generate, as our measure of population size. But the winter numbers are the sum of everything that happened during the year, which is hidden from our view except very locally. One can do statistical analyses with them and they will give you some kind of an answer, but will it tell us anything used in interpreting reality?"

"The point of giving species protection under Endangered Species legislation is to provide a legal umbrella to encourage actions that will promote species recovery. Most endangered species have discrete populations and their critical habitat and resources can thus be protected. The monarch is different. There is no point in declaring it threatened or endangered if that, like planting milkweed, is just a feel-good action unlikely to translate into any benefit to the species."

As for the meeting at UC Davis on Feb. 28, "its first order of business," Shapiro believes, "should be to decide what we need to know that we don't know in order to take meaningful action on the monarch (and by extension, to help the rest of our imperiled butterfly fauna)."

Stay tuned.

Tardigrades, also known as the water bears, are microscopic animals but they're not microscopic any more!

They're featured prominently on the newly available Bohart Museum of Entomology hooded sweatshirts, the work of artist Charlotte Herbert Alberts and designer Fran Keller.

Tardigrades can survive in many extreme conditions, including space, and they're sure to survive in the Bohart--unless they're all gone soon.

Available in red, gray and black, from sizes extra small to extra extra large, they'll be offered in the Bohart Museum gift shop during the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day on Saturday, Feb. 16. Proceeds from the sales benefit the insect museum's educational activities.

The artist? Charlotte Herbert Alberts, an entomology doctoral candidate who studies Asilidae (Assassin flies) with her major professor, Lynn Kimsey,   director of the Bohart and UC Davis professor of entomology.  Alberts cleverly drew a "Bohart Republic" water bear flag, a take-off of the California Bear Flag, except hers features an entomologist, insect net in hand, riding a huge tardigrade.

The front features a tardigrade face inside a Bohart logo, a design by Fran Keller, an assistant professor at Folsom Lake College. She received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis, studying with Kimsey and designed many of the shirts, sweatshirts and posters in the Bohart Museum's gift shop.

UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day
The Bohart is gearing up for the eighth annual UC Davis Biodiversity Day,  a science-based event that's free and family friendly. Thirteen museums or collections will be open Saturday. It all begins at 9 a.m. and concludes at 4 p.m. Maps are available at http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/.

These seven collections will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.:

• Arboretum and Public Garden, Good Life Garden, next to the Robert Mondavi Institute, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
• Bohart Museum of Entomology, Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
• California Raptor Center, 340 Equine Lane, off Old Davis Road
• Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, Room 1394, Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
• Paleontology Collection, Earth and Physical Sciences Building, 434 LaRue Road
• Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
• Viticulture and Enology Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus

 The following will be open from noon to 4 p.m.:

• Anthropology Museum, 328 Young Hall and grounds
• Botanical Conservatory, Greenhouses along Kleiber Hall Drive
• Center for Plant Diversity, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
• Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, Bee Biology Road, off Hopkins Road (take West Hutchison Drive to Hopkins)
• Nematode Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
• Marine Invertebrate Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive

All participating museums and collections have active education and outreach programs, but the collections are not always accessible to the public. 

Remember receiving valentine cards that read "Bee My Valentine?"

Well, every day can be Valentine's Day when there are bees in your garden.

We captured this image several years ago of a queen bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, nectaring on a spiked floral purple plant, Salvia indigo spires (Salvia farinacea x S. farinacea). She had just emerged from her winter hibernation on a sunny day in November. The site: the Sonoma Cornerstone pollinator garden of Kate Frey. She's the co-author of The Bee-Friendly Garden (with UC San Francisco professor Gretchen LeBuhn), and a world-class garden designer and pollinator advocate.

It wasn't Valentine's Day, but then again, yes, it was!

Every day is Valentine's Day when there are bees in your garden.

Bee my valentine!