- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you attend the Bohart Museum of Entomology's annual Moth Night celebration, affiliated with National Moth Week, you'll meet John De Benedictis, better known as “The Moth Man.”
The indoor-outdoor event, free and open to the public, is set from 7 to 11 p.m., Saturday, July 20 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane.
De Benedictis and his colleagues annually set up a blacklighting display, using UV lighting to attract moths and other night-flying insects. He has blacklighted for 37 years.
His moth collection of some 600 species from the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve and 300 species from his backyard in Davis is housed in the Bohart Museum.
"Jerry Powell (the late UC Berkeley professor and director of the Essig Museum of Entomology) once estimated that there are about 17,000 North American butterflies and moths," De Benedictus commented. "I would not be surprised if it's closer to 20,000."
'Expertise in Moth Identification Is Invaluable'
"John has been great volunteer and supporter of the Bohart Museum," said UC Davis distinguished emerita professor Lynn Kimsey, former director of the Bohart Museum. "His expertise in moth identification is invaluable and now that Jerry Powell is gone, there's really no one else who can identify moths, particularly little brown moths (LBMs) of California."
De Benedictis, a research associate at the Bohart Museum, is closely linked to UC Berkeley, his alma mater, and UC Davis, where he retired. He holds a bachelor's degree in biology, with an emphasis in entomology (1979), and a master's degree in entomology (1998) from UC Berkeley. "Jerry was my major professor and also recruited me as an undergraduate to work in his lab."
A UC Davis retiree since 2001, De Benedictis worked as a staff research assistant from 1995 to 2001 in the laboratory of medical entomologist Tom Scott, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
"I came to Davis in 1989 for a two-month job to key out aphids for Beth Grafton-Cardwell, who at that time was a postdoc of (Professor) Jeffrey Granett. During that time, the rootstock that was being used to protect wine grapevines from grape phylloxera began to fail in Napa and Sonoma counties, so I was able to prolong my stay at Davis through a series of grants to address that problem. While working for Beth and Jeffrey, I got a mini-grant from the former Institute of Ecology to study moths at the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve where I collected from 1989 until the last major fire in 2020."
“I began a similar inventory of the species in my backyard after I purchased my home in 1998," De Benedictis said. "It continues to this day, and a synoptic collection of the 300 or so species that I've collected in my yard is housed alongside the Cold Canyon collection in the Bohart Museum.” Grace Horne of the lab of urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, Department of Entomology and Nematology, is analyzing the data from these studies as part of her doctoral research.
When Children Were 'Free-Range'
John traces his interest in entomology to his childhood. Born in Oakland in 1945, the second of six children on Aldo and Eleanor De Benedictis, he grew up in Berkeley.
“I am grateful that I had parents who not merely tolerated but encouraged our activities and to have grown up in an era when chickens were confined and children were free-range rather than the reverse as is the case today.”
“I attended Berkeley public schools and later UC Berkeley, except for my last year of junior high school which was in Mt. Vernon, N. Y., while my dad was temporarily transferred,” De Benedictis said. “My older brother Paul was keenly interested in natural history, which switched from subject to subject whenever a new Golden Nature Guide came out. We spent much of our free time poking around in the East Bay Regional Parks and in Strawberry Canyon behind Berkeley's Central Campus.” (Paul went on to obtain a doctorate in ecology in Michigan.)
While in the fourth grade, John began “collecting butterflies, a few flashy moths, and other insects with my older brother and a couple of classmates. A highlight of my youth was the return trip from New York by car where we chased butterflies that we never saw in New York or in California as often as we could complain long and loud enough to make my dad stop the station wagon.”
When John was attending junior high in the late 1950s, he found a Polyphemus moth under a streetlight on the UC Berkeley campus. “It was a highly prized find. At UC Berkeley, we collected on spring field trips with the systematics professors and students and we---whoever was participating--ran lights on during our spruce budworm field trips. I ran a sheet a few times on San Bruno Mountain on my own and was surprised to find that very few of the moths that I had reared from caterpillars flew to my light. While in grad school and afterwards, I went on a few of Jerry Powell's trips to the California Channel Islands to assist him in his inventory of the islands' Lepidoptera species. There we ran lights and set out light traps when it wasn't too cold and windy.”
Species Named for Him
De Benedictis recalled that he and Dave Wagner, now a professor at the University of Connecticut, started graduate studies with Powell at UC Berkeley at the same time. "Jerry had a long-term project studying larval host plants of caterpillars, and Dave and I were among the succession of students who took care of his larval rearing lots on the Berkeley campus. Dave went on to become the current authority on the caterpillars of large moths. I was more interested in smaller moths and prolonged my graduate years by collecting caterpillars on San Bruno Mountain by the San Francisco Airport.” There De Benedictis discovered a handful of new species, one of which Powell named Gnorimoschema debenedictisi.
“The Mid-Winter Gathering is a legacy of Jerry Powell,” said De Benedictus, who spent more time in the field with Powell than any other UC Berkeley graduate student. "I was privileged to be Jerry's student and lucky to have him become my friend."I
In a tribute to Powell, the Essig Museum wrote: "Jerry's rearing program was the most extensive in the history of the study of New World Microlepidoptera. For over 50 years he and his students processed more than 15,000 collections of larval or live adult Lepidoptera. Resulting data encompass more than 1,000 species of moths, through rearing either field-collected larvae or those emerging from eggs deposited by females in confinement. This total includes more than 60% of an estimated 1,500 species of Microlepidoptera occurring in California."
Powell and Paul Opler, two Lepidoptera legends, co-authored Moths of Western North America.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
In the sweltering heat of Solano County (100 degrees) during National Pollinator Month, how about an image of a sweat bee, genus Halictus, a tiny bee that's often overlooked in the world of pollinators.
It's a social bee that nests in the soil. "These nests consist of a complex of tunnels with individual brood chambers," according to California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday), the work of UC-affiliated scientists,
My camera caught this Halictus flying over Coreopsis in our Vacaville pollinator garden on June 5.
Camera: Nikon Z8 with a 50mm lens
Settings: Shutter speed, 1/4000 of a second; f-stop, 5; ISO 500.
UC Davis distinguished professor emerita Lynn Kimsey, emeritus director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, and Bohart Museum scientist Sandy Shanks said the species appears to be Halictus ligatus.
Most Halictus species are generalist foragers, according to the Great Sunflower Project. "They use all sorts of genera of plants from the Asteraceae to Scrophulariaceae. They are very common on composites (daisy-like disc and ray flowers) in summer and fall."
We've seen them on everything from mustard to milkweeds to catmint to rock purslane, from spring to fall. They also appear regularly on the tower of jewels (Echium wildpretii).
Not to mention the Coreopsis.
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
That was the consensus at the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house when attendees tried to locate the queen in the bee observation hive at a table staffed by UC Davis graduate student Richard Martinez of the Elina Lastro Niño lab, Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Martinez purposefully didn't mark the queen.
"Most kids thought the queen was going to be marked--common beekeeping practice--but mine wasn't, so they thought that was unfair," Martinez quipped. "Only one kid was able to find the queen. And it was toward the end of the event. The queen was laying an egg when we found her."
The drones, the males, also drew avid interest.
"After I mentioned the hive has drones, what i referred to as 'the boys'--it helps kids understand their role in the hive--they were fascinated with finding the drones, which they did."
Most kids, however, confused drones for the queen, Martinez said.
Attendees, both adults and youth, delighted in trying on the beekeeper veils and suits, and examining the hive tools and other apiary equipment.
"A lot of the kids asked what bees do inside the hive," Martinez said. "So I went through my list of roles honey bees carry out. One family was super invested in the science behind honey bee research, particularly nutrition, which is what I study."
"It was a pretty fun event," he said.
The queen bee, the largest bee in the colony, has a long, narrow, pointed abdomen, and shorter wings than the worker bee. The worker has a rounded abdomen and wings that extend almost to the end of the abdomen. The drone, stout in body, has what some call "wrap around eyes."
The Bohart Museum open house, held May 19 not only featured honey bees (managed bees) but wild bees. (More images pending)
Martinez, a master's student, studies honey bee health, specializing in nutrition, in the lab of E. L. Niño, associate professor of Cooperative Extension, and a member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty.
Martinez recently helped staffed the UC Davis Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA) t-shirt booth at Briggs Hall during the 110th annual UC Davis Picnic Day, where he and fellow graduate students wore "Bugbie" shirts. The t-shirt, designed by Marielle Hansel Friedman, a second-year doctoral student in the lab of urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, features a rosy maple moth, Dryocampa rubicunda. (EGSA offers a variety of t-shirts on its sales website at https://ucdavisentgrad.square.site/.)
The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis, houses a global collection of eight million insects, plus a live petting zoo, and a gift shop. Professor Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, and the associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, directs the museum. He also serves as president-elect of the American Arachnological Society.
The next open houses are set for
- Saturday, July 20: "Moth Night at the Museum," 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.
- Saturday, Sept. 28: "Museum ABCs: Arthropods Bohart, and Collecting," 1 to 4:30 p.m.
All open houses are free and family friendly; parking is also free on weekends.
Summer public walk-in hours are on Tuesdays, June 17-Aug. 27 from 9 a.m. to noon, and from 1 to 4 p.m. The museum will be closed to the general public from Sept. 1-22.
For more information, access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Those are some of the activities planned when the Bohart Museum of Entomology hosts an open house on managed bees and wild bees on Sunday, May 19.
The open house, free and family friendly, takes place from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus.
It's perfect timing for "World Bee Day," observed annually on May 20.
At the Sunday open house, UC Davis graduate student Richard Martinez of the lab of apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño, associate professor of Cooperative Extension, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will staff the honey bee booth.
Martinez, enrolled in the master's graduate studies entomology program, says that the E.L, Niño Lab booth will display an observation hive and offer honey tasting from a variety of floral sources. He will be sharing recent projects aimed at improving honey bee health via dietary supplements. He also plans to showcase beekeeping suits and hive tools.
Among others scheduled to participate (as of 4 p.m. today) are:
- the laboratory of community ecologist Rachel Vannette, associate professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. She will participate with lab members doctoral candidate Lexie Martin, doctoral student Dino Sbardellati, and junior specialist Leta Landucci. "At the Vannette Lab booth, you will be able to look into the life of a bee--both in terms of where they live and how they develop!" said Martin. "A live bumble bee nest and solitary bee nests will be available, so you can peer inside a bee's house! Additionally, there will be live bee larvae to observe under a microscope and interactive displays on the bee life cycle."
- Bohart Museum bee scientists Thomas Zavortink and Sandy Shanks
- Doctoral student Sofía Meléndez Cartagena of the Stacey Combes lab, Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior. She will focus on local bee diversity.
- Chancellor's Fellow Santiago Ramirez, associate professor, Department of Evolution and Ecology, who studies orchid bees
- Doctoral student Peter Coggan of the Ramirez lab. He studies the neurological and genetic basis of orchid bee courtship behavior and evolution.
The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of eight million insects, plus a live petting zoo, and a gift shop. Professor Jason Bond directs the museum as of Feb. 1, succeeding Kimsey, who served 34 years. Bond is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, and the associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He also serves as president-elect of the American Arachnological Society.
For more information, access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Free and family friendly, the open house takes place from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus.
"It should be a great event!” said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. “There is a lot of interest in bees this time of year. The format will be tabling with direct conversations with visitors.” The event is free and family friendly. Parking is also free.
Among those participating will be the laboratory of community ecologist Rachel Vannette, associate professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
"At the Vannette Lab booth, you will be able to look into the life of a bee--both in terms of where they live and how they develop!" said doctoral candidate and researcher Lexie Martin. "A live bumble bee nest and solitary bee nests will be available, so you can peer inside a bee's house! Additionally, there will be live bee larvae to observe under a microscope and interactive displays on the bee life cycle."
Vannette describes her lab as "a team of entomologists, microbiologists, chemical ecologists, and community ecologists trying to understand how microbial communities affect plants and insects (sometimes other organisms too). We often study microbial communities in flowers, on insects or in soil. We rely on natural history observations, and use techniques from chemical ecology, microbial ecology and community ecology."
Vannette's lab members participating at the open house will include:
Lexie Martin, doctoral candidate in the Entomology Graduate Group. She is interested in the impact of microbes on bee health
Dino Sbardellati, doctoral student in the Microbiology Graduate Group. He is a microbiologist interested in understanding how microbial ecology shapes macroscale ecology
Leta Landucci, a junior specialist and biochemist. She is inspired by chemical ecology, and broadly interested in exploring chemically mediated plant-insect-microbe interactions
Others scheduled to participate are Bohart Museum scientists and bee specialists Thomas Zavortink and Sandy Shanks; doctoral student Sofía Meléndez Cartagena of the Stacey Combes lab, Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior (she will focus on local bee diversity); Chancellor's Fellow Santiago Ramirez, associate professor, Department of Evolution and Ecology, who studies orchid bees; doctoral student Peter Coggan of the Ramirez lab (Coggan studies the neurological and genetic basis of orchid bee courtship behavior and evolution); and Richard Martinez, entomology graduate student researcher in the lab of apiculturist Elina Niño,associate professor of Cooperative Extension, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Martinez says that the E.L Niño Lab booth will display an observation hive and offer honey tasting from a variety of floral sources. He will be sharing recent projects aimed at improving honey bee health via dietary supplements. He also plans to showcase beekeeping suits and hive tools.
UC Davis distinguished professor emerita Lynn Kimsey, who directed the Bohart Museum for 34 years, is also scheduled to participate. She is known as "wasp woman," but she did her dissertation on orchid bees in Panama.
The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of eight million insects, plus a live petting zoo, and a gift shop. Professor Jason Bond directs the museum as of Feb. 1, succeeding UC Davis distinguished professor emerita Lynn Kimsey, who served 34 years. Bond is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, and the associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He also serves as president-elect of the American Arachnological Society.
For more information, access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.