We are all saddened by the death of noted forest entomologist and chemical ecologist Steven Jon Seybold, a lecturer and researcher with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and a research entomologist with the Pacific Southwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Davis.

Steve passed away Friday, Nov. 15 at a Sacramento hospital of a heart condition. Born in 1959 in Madison, Wisconsin, he was 60 years old. He was one of the pioneering scientists researching the newly discovered thousand cankers disease (TCD), caused by the walnut twig beetle, Pityophthorus juglandis, in association with the canker-producing fungus, Geosmithia morbida. He was a worldwide authority on the insect, fungus and disease.  (See obituary in Davis Enterprise)

In his memory, he was honored with a moment of silence this week at the Entomological Society of America meeting in St. Louis, Mo.

The tributes are pouring in:

Nematologist Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology: "Steve was an excellent chemical ecologist whose research on insect pests of trees proved to be of great importance to landscapes throughout North America.”

Chemical ecologist Walter Leal, UC Davis Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and past chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology (now the Department of Entomology and Nematology). "Chemical ecology lost a champion, forestry entomology lost an ally, and we will miss a friend and colleague. Steve served the International Society of Chemical Ecology as Councilor, the Journal of Chemical Ecology as Associate Editor, and mentored many undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. He elucidated biochemical mechanisms related to bark beetle pheromones, leaving behind a legacy of papers and review articles, some of which have already been cited almost one thousand times. I copied from him the style of praising colleagues when citing their good work by adding the advert 'elegantly' like in the following sentence. Steve Seybold elegantly demonstrated how bark beetles make their pheromones."

Doctoral student Jackson Audley of the Seybold lab: "Steve Seybold was a brilliant scientist and an integral component of the forest entomology community, especially here in the western USA. I admired the amount of time he spent out in the field. I have often heard it said that once a field biologist obtains a Ph.D., that they often become something of an 'armchair biologist', not Steve. I have never seen him happier than when he was out on long field excursions, hunting down various trees and tree pests. I hope to emulate that characteristic in my own career. Although my time working with Steve now feels cut abruptly and unfairly short, he imparted a great deal of wisdom upon me in that time. I am incredibly grateful to have had Steve as a mentor and a friend. He contributed a great deal to making me into the scientist I am today. He will be sorely missed."

Seybold lab alumnus Andrew Graves (now a zone leader entomologist with the Forest Service, Forest Health Protection, New Mexico Zone): "We are all shocked and saddened. Steve and I worked together for nearly 20 years. A faithful mentor, constant teacher, an incessant researcher to whom the time of day or length of time were meaningless, a good friend who contributed much to our world. A too early passing and a great loss for us all.  He was a good man and will be missed by many. If I had to guess, he would've been disappointed he didn't finish that last manuscript."

Seybold lab alumnus Stacy Hishinuma, who went on to accept a position in the Pacific Southwest Region, San Bernardino: "Steve was a pivotal person in my life. I worked with him for more than 10 years and during that time he pushed me to have the highest scientific standards and taught me all I know about research. He was an involved mentor and cared deeply about the success of his students. His love was expressed through the red marks on our manuscripts, the time he spent helping us with presentations, and the pop quizzes on insect identification. When I started graduate school, people advised me to be the first person in and the last person to leave. This was impossible in the Seybold lab since Steve regularly started working before dawn. It was somehow always startling when I would email Steve at 4:00a, before heading to sleep, and he would immediately respond. Steve's work ethic was unprecedented. It was inspiring to see his passion for research. His love for science was only rivaled by his love for his daughters. I'll always miss the conversations we had driving to field sites, eating at his go-to restaurants, and geeking out about bark beetles. Thank you for everything Steve. I hope I can help carry on your legacy through my own work as a forest entomologist."

We knew him as an incredible scientist with an immense curiosity, an outstanding teacher, and a kind and caring friend. A few of the last news stories we wrote about him:

• A Sign of the Times: Why This Black Walnut Tree Is Dying
• Meet the Extreme Insects at the Bohart Museum of Entomology Open House
• Walnut Twig Beetle and Fungus Has Caused 'Profound Damage to Black Walnut Trees

Steve is survived by his widow, Julie Tillman, and daughters Natalie, 11, and Emily, 17. "Steve loved his work and his daughters with his whole self and heart," Julie said. "He will be sorely missed by his family and friends, his lab family and his huge network of professional colleagues."

A visitation will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22, at Smith Funeral Home in Davis. A service will be held on Saturday, Nov. 23, at Saint James Church in Davis at 10 a.m. with interment at a later date near his father at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison. Memorials in his name may be made to the American Heart Association, National Parks Conservation Association or the Entomology and Nematology Student Support fund at UC Davis.

Scary critters with mandibles and lovable insects with antennae gathered at the Halloween party at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davi, hosted by the Friends of the Bohart.

There was the bee family: the queen bee, the drone and the worker bee. That would be entomologist Leslie Saul-Gershenz and biologist Norman Gershenz, the husband-wife team behind SaveNature.Org, a non-profit Bay Area-based organization devoted to insects.

Leslie, who holds a doctorate in entomology from UC Davis, is the associate director of research, Wild Energy Initiative, John Muir Institute of the Environment at UC Davis. The worker bee? That would be their service dog. The "worker" bee, however,spent most of her time sleeping beneath a table while the queen bee and drone mingled in the hive of activity around them.

Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey wore his ghillie suit. Bohart associate Emma Cluff came dressed as "The Mad Hatter." Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator, disguised herself as a monarch caterpillar.

One of the highlights was a parasitoid pinata crafted by doctoral student Charlotte Herbert Alberts and husband, insect enthusiast George Alberts. They drew inspiration from the party invitation of artist and entomology alumnus Nicole Tam.

Of her art, Tam said: "All good things come in groups of three like the heads of Kerberos. Also, I just really wanted to draw a three-headed wasp! The wasps I used for this art piece were from the genera Polistes, Synoeca, and Dolichovespula."

And the piñata? Charlotte and George interpreted their work as "a parasitoid of dragon eggs. Probably led to the extinction of dragons. We used paper mache, chicken wire for extra defense, wire for molding and lots of paint."

The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It is also the home of the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. In addition, it maintains a live "petting zoo," featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks or stick insects, tarantulas; and a year-around gift shop stocked with T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.

Director of the museum is Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis. The staff includes Steve Heydon, senior museum scientist; Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator; and Jeff Smith, who curates the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) section.

The 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.

Mark your calendars for a "parade of parasitoids!"

The Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, is sponsoring its annual "Parasitoid Palooza" open house on Saturday, Oct. 19 from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane.

"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 event, free and family friendly, will include a display by senior museum scientist Steve Heydon, who studies Pteromalids, or jewel wasps, a group of tiny parasitoids. He will be available for questions about his research or parasitoids.

There are some 3,450 described species of Pteromalids, found throughout the world and in virtually all habitats. Many are important as biological control agents.

Also planned at the open house:

• A family craft activity, to be announced
• Sampling of Chirp Chips, from the Bohart Museum's recent entomophagy open house
• Display of orange and black Harlequin beetles (just in time for Halloween) from the Ian Grettenberger lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
• Display of cucumber beetles, which can be a pest on squashes, cucumbers and other members of the cucurbits family

The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It is also the home of the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity.

Special attractions include a “live” petting zoo, featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks, praying mantids and tarantulas. Visitors are invited to hold some of the insects and photograph them. The museum's gift shop, open year around, includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.

The Bohart Museum holds special open houses throughout the academic year. Its 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 emailing bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or Tabatha Yang at tabyang@ucdavis.edu.

Ever eaten a bug?

Sure you have.

Insect fragments are in just about all the foods we eat, from chocolate to coffee to wheat flour to pizza sauce to beer and more. An insect control company estimates that we eat, on the average, 140,000 "bug bits" every year. (See Business Insider.)

But now you can REALLY eat a bug. And experience the joy and adventure of eating a new and exciting kind of protein.

The Bohart Museum of Entomology is hosting an open house themed "Gobble, Gobble, Munch, Munch, Crunch: Entomophagy,” from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 21 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane. Open to the public, it's free and family friendly, said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis.

“The theme is entomophagy and we have some samples from various companies coming our way,” said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. Companies providing samples include Hotlix, Exo and Chirps Chips.

"Just think of insects as terrestrial shrimp or crab," said senior museum scientist Steve Heydon.

The event will include learning about entomophagy, sampling insect-based foods, button-making (“I ate a bug at the Bohart”), viewing the collection, and handling insects from the petting zoo, which includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas. Yang and Bohart associate Emma Cluff recently completed an online training for food handling, as required by UC Davis.

In preparation for the event, Bohart Museum volunteer Iris Bright, a second-year biology major at Sacramento City College, sampled crickets, mealworms and earthworms last week.

Bright liked them all. “They're good,” she said, as she tasted red, green and blue earthworms. She described them as having "a sweet and sour taste." The mealworms? “Somewhat cheesy.”

“The crickets are crunchy," she said, adding "I've had them before.”

Bright, who plans to obtain a degree in biology and a field ecology certificate and then her master's degree, joined the Bohart Museum of Entomology/Folsom Lake College team that recently collected insects in Belize. She's studied with Belize bioblitz team leader Fran Keller, an assistant professor at Folsom Lake College who received her doctorate in entomology at UC Davis.

Eighty percent of the world population, including those living in Central and South America, Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand, consume insects as a high protein source. Some 1700 species of insects are edible.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has registered some 1,900 edible insect species and estimates that there were, in 2005, some two billion insect consumers worldwide. FAO suggests eating insects as a possible solution to environmental degradation caused by livestock production. Insects and arachnids eaten globally include crickets, cicadas, grasshoppers, ants, various beetle grubs (such as mealworms, the larvae of the darkling beetle, various species of caterpillars (such as bamboo worms, Mopani worms, silkworms and waxworms), scorpions and tarantulas, according to Wikipedia.

Spencer Michels in a PBS News Hour report in May 2017, commented: “But the big advantage of eating insects is that they are generally healthier than meat. A six-ounce serving of crickets has 60 percent less saturated fat and twice as much vitamin B-12 than the same amount of ground beef. ..Bugs also don't spread disease to humans the way cows — think mad cow disease– or pigs can.”

“I do realize that insects do have a bad rap,” California Academy of Sciences entomologist Brian Fisher recently said. “Most people see insects are pests or as dangerous. But it's just the opposite. Insects are less dangerous and less of a problem for humans in terms of disease."

“We do have concerns about disease jumping from animals like pigs and cows to humans,” Fisher said. “But there are no worries about a disease jumping from an insect to humans. The more evolutionary distant we are from our food source, the less danger there is. … There is almost zero chance that any disease that affects an insect could actually impact a human after it's cooked.”

Celebrity bug chef David George Gordon, author of the “Eat-a-Bug” cookbook, extolled the virtues of the “bugs as food” movement when he addressed a UC Davis audience in 2014 at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science. Insects are an environmentally friendly source of protein, he said, and bug farming reduces greenhouse gas emissions and is exponentially more water-efficient than farming for beef, chicken, or pigs.

The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It is also the home of the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum. It maintains a live "petting zoo," featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks or stick insects, tarantulas, and praying mantids. The museum's gift shop, open year around, includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.

The 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.)