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Happenings in the insect world
Meet You at the Bohart!
Kathy Keatley Garvey
Published on: September 9, 2016

If you've never visited the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, or if you're eager to return, mark your calendar!

Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and Tabatha Yang, public education and outreach coordinator, have just announced the schedule for the special weekend hours for the academic year.

The museum, world-renowned for its global collection of some eight million insects, is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis.

Admission? Free. Parking? Free. It doesn't get any better than that! Visitors find it both educational and entertaining.

The schedule:

  • Sunday, Sept. 18, 1 to 4 p.m.: “UnBelize-able Expedition: Collecting Tropical Insects” (summer collection trip led by Bohart associate/entomologist Fran Keller, assistant professor of biology, Folsom Lake College,  and Dave Wyatt, professor of biology at Sacramento City College)
  • Saturday, Nov. 19: 1 to 4 p.m.: “Uninvited Guests: Common Pests Found in the Home”
  • Sunday, Jan. 22: 1 to 4 p.m.: “Parasite Palooza: Botflies, Fleas and Mites, Oh, My”
  • Saturday, Feb. 18: (varying times throughout campus): Biodiversity Museum Day, an opportunity to explore 11 UC Davis collections
  • Sunday, March 19: 1 to 4 p.m.: “Eggs to Wings: Backyard Butterfly Gardening”
  • Saturday, April 22: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.: “”UC Davis Picnic Day”

The Bohart Museum also maintains a live “petting zoo,” featuring walking sticks, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and tarantulas. Current residents also include Gulf Fritillary caterpillars and chrysalids (soon to be butterflies), and a female juvenile praying mantis. 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. The website is http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/

Here's a look--in pictures--at some of the educational and fun activities at the last open house, held July 30. Visitors learned about moths and other insects (it featured National Moth Night), met the scientists one-on-one, engaged in family activities, and checked out the collections.

And, oh, yes, you can take selfies with such critters as a rose-haired tarantula and a walking stick!

Retired entomologist and Bohart Museum associate Norm Smith engages visitors as he talks about moths at the July 30th Bohart Museum open house. Smith received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis with major professor Richard Bohart, for whom the museum is named. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Retired entomologist and Bohart Museum associate Norm Smith engages visitors as he talks about moths at the July 30th Bohart Museum open house. Smith received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis with major professor Richard Bohart, for whom the museum is named. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Nan Rowan of Davis talks to entomologist and UC Davis graduate student Jessica Gillung (foreground) at the open house on July 30. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Nan Rowan of Davis talks to entomologist and UC Davis graduate student Jessica Gillung (foreground) at the open house on July 30. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Selfies are fun to take at the Bohart Museum of Entomology. Here Monica Ballard of Rancho Cordova smiles for the camera as an Australian walking stick obliges. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Selfies are fun to take at the Bohart Museum of Entomology. Here Monica Ballard of Rancho Cordova smiles for the camera as an Australian walking stick obliges. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bohart Museum of Entomology director Lynn Kimsey oversees the global collection of insects, which numbers nearly eight million. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Bohart Museum of Entomology director Lynn Kimsey oversees the global collection of insects, which numbers nearly eight million. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Tags: Bohart Museum of Entomology (594), Jessica Glung (1), Lynn Kimsey (412), Norm Smith (2), open houses (7), Tabatha Yang (139)
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