It was a big butterfly-and-bee day at the Bohart.

Despite other major attractions--including the gorgeous spring day and the March Madness basketball tournament--nearly 300 people visited the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology last Saturday during its three-hour open house, themed "Eggs to Wings: Backyard Butterfly Gardening."

They conferred with Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis; Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology; Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator; and a number of Bohart associates, including entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the moth and butterfly display; naturalist Greg Kareofelas, a butterfly and dragonfly enthusiast; entomologists Jessica Gillung and Ziad Khouri, doctoral candidates; Nicole Tam, junior specialist; and Joel Hernandez and Alex Nguyen, recent entomology graduates.

 "Hungry, hungry caterpillars!" read one poster, illustrated with photos of the monarch, gulf fritillary and pipevine swallowtail caterpillars and their adult stages. "Having a garden full of flowers provides nectar, an important food source for adult butterflies, but what about their hungry, hungry caterpillars? It seems counterintuitive to grow plants that yu want insects to eat, but that is exactly what butterflies need when they are larvae."

The poster, the work of Tabatha Yang (with photos by yours truly), pointed out that monarch caterpillars eat only milkweed (genus Asclepias); gulf fritillary caterpillars eat only passionflower vine (genus Passiflora), and pipevine swallowtail caterpillars dine on the pipevine plant (family Aristolochiaceae).

Jeff Smith kept busy showing visitors the drawers of butterfly specimens, including blue morphos, monarchs and swallowtails. As he opened one drawer, he explained that "this drawer contains several species of South American rainforest butterflies, Preponas, in the genus Archaeoprepona." He described them as "extremely strong and fast fliers, but they love to settle on baits such as fermenting fruit on the ground. We (Bohart team) caught several in the ongoing Belize biodiversity work this past year."

Robbin Thorp showed live male Valley carpenter bees, Xylocopa varipuncta, green-eyed blond bees that are also known as "teddy bear" bees. "Boy bees can't sting," Thorp said, reassuring a few leary visitors. The female of the species is solid black. (Following the open house, Thorp returned the bees to the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road.)

A family craft activity featured "wiggling caterpillars," made with with straw and paper. The youths also held Madagascar hissing cockroaches and walking sticks.

The Bohart gave away Patrón tequila bottles, donated by TJ's Tavern of Vacaville, for the "monarch starter set," which includes a zippered, meshed butterfly habitat (available for purchase at the Bohart gift shop and elsewhere) and a Patrón bottle.  The bottle is filled with water and milkweed cuttings and "just add monarch caterpillars." The bottles, embedded with a bee logo, are favored because they're sturdy with a broad base (so they won't tip over) and a narrow neck (so caterpillars can't fall in and drown).

The bottle is tucked inside a zipped, meshed butterfly habitat and placed indoors or in a screened patio to prevent tachinid flies and wasps from laying their eggs in the caterpillars or chrysalids. Once the monarchs pupate and eclose, they are released to start another generation. This is a small-scale conservation project.

The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane,  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, offers 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. Special open houses take place throughout the academic year. The next open house takes place during the annual campuswide Picnic Day on April 22.

More information on the Bohart Museum is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or bmuseum@ucdavis.edu. The website is http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/

It's almost spring. Do you know where your butterflies are? Do you know how to attract them to your yard?

Greg Kareofelas, a Bohart Museum of Entomology associate with expertise on  local butterflies, will be at the Bohart Museum's open house on Sunday, March 19 from 1 to 4 p.m. to meet informally with visitors, talk about butterflies and answer their questions.

The open house, themed "Eggs to Wings: Backyard Butterfly Gardening,"  takes place in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. It is free and open to the public. No reservations are required.

“I've always had an interest in butterflies since I was a little kid,” said Kareofleas, a Davis resident who has studied butterflies “seriously” since the late 1970s. "Back then, there was no Internet and books on butterflies in California were minimal and it seemed that most of the books published were on East Coast butterflies or butterflies out of our region. It was the late 1970s, after all, and we couldn't just go on the Internet for butterfly identification.”

It was then that Kareofelas met butterfly guru Arthur Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology. Shapiro, involved in butterfly research for more than four decades, now posts his work on his website.) Shapiro authored Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions (University of California Press, 2007). 

Kareofelas, a naturalist and avid photographer, now spends much of his time researching and photographing butterflies, as well as dragonflies and other insects, and speaking to nature-oriented organizations. He is also a regular at the Bohart Museum open houses where he enthusiastically talks about insects he's encountered.

UC Davis offers great resources, Kareofelas says. “For instance, you can get an insect identified at the Bohart Museum, and a plant identified at the Herbarium. And then there are the great resources like the Sacramento Native Plant Society, the UC Davis Botanical Society and the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden."

Kareofelas is pleased to see the growing interest in butterflies and their larval host plants (where butterflies lay their eggs). “All you need is a yard to attract them,” he said. “Plant the larval host plants. Plant nectar plants, such as the butterfly bush, for the adults." 

Want monarchs living in our backyard? “Plant milkweed, their larval host plant," Karofelas says.

Kareofelas mentioned a few host plants that will draw specific species: 

• Plant pipevine, aka Dutchmen's pipe, for the Pipevine Swallowtails
• Plant passionflower vine for the Gulf Fritillaries
• Plant fennel for the Anise Swallowtails
• Plant baby tears (in the nettle family) for Red Admirals
• Plant snagdragons for Buckeyes
• Plant Rose of Sharon for the Gray Hairstreaks
• Plant mallow for the Checkered Skippers

Kareofelas has reared all the common species, as well some of the rare ones, including the California dogface butterfly, the state insect. With permission, he collected eggs from the rarely seen California dogface butterfly at its most populous breeding site, on Placer Land and Trust acreage near Auburn. The butterfly (Zerene eurydice) lays its eggs on false indigo (Amorpha californica).

Kareofelas, who serves as a guide several times a year for tours hosted by Placer Land and Trust, said that one result of rearing the California dogface butterfly is the publication of the 35-page children's book,  "The Story of the Dogface Butterfly," written by Bohart associate Fran Keller (now an assistant professor at Folsom Lake College) with illustrations by then UC Davis student Laine Bauer, and photos by Kareofelas and Keller.

The book, available in the Bohart Museum's gift shop, tells the untold story of the California dogface butterfly,  and how schoolchildren became involved in convincing the State Legislature to select the colorful butterfly as the state insect.  (See Bug Squad.)

The Bohart Museum's open house on Sunday will showcase butterflies in the area. A family craft activity will be making "wiggling caterpillars," with straw and paper, said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart.

Directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, the Bohart Museum  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, offers 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. Special open houses take place throughout the academic year. The one on March 19 is the second to the last of the 2016-2017 academic year. The last one is Saturday, April 22, the campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day.

More information on the Bohart Museum is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or bmuseum@ucdavis.edu. The website is http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/

Any day's a good day when you find the ootheca (egg case) of a praying mantis in your yard. It's much better than finding an Easter egg.

Ootheca comes from the Greek word "oo," meaning egg and the Latin word, "theca," meaning a cover or container.

A few weeks ago, we spotted an ootheca (below) on our lavender bush. It's sturdily attached to a stem about a foot off the ground. Note the small hole on the right near the top, the exit hole of a parasitoid, perhaps a wasp or fly, according to Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis.

We're not counting our eggs until they hatch but we saw another ootheca on our lantana. And another one on a thin branch of an olive tree. Mama Mantis knows the best spots.

When springlike temperatures greet us, we expect some 100 to 200 praying mantids to hatch or emerge from each egg case. The nymphs will be hungry and will eat everything in sight, including their siblings. They do that, you know. No love lost. No brotherly love or sisterly love here. Bon appétit!

Then the young mantids will nab a few aphids and flies and other small critters until they are able to ambush and snag much larger prey, including honey bees, sweat bees, bumble bees, syprhid flies, and butterflies. And sometimes, a hummingbird...

If you see them hanging around your hummingbird feeder, they're not there for the sugar. They're not vegetarians; they're  carnivores.

It's a story that no one is letting him forget.

Noted medical entomologist Robert "Bob" Washino, emeritus professor of entomology and a veteran academic administrator at UC Davis, was hanging out in his back yard in Davis last spring when an aedine mosquito bit him.

He wondered whether it might be associated with the Zika virus so he headed over to the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis and handed the specimen to fellow mosquito researcher Tom Zavortink.

"The truth of the matter is that I was concerned that the mosquito biting me was either aegypti or albopictus associated with the Zika virus that is raising commotion all over the U.S. and the world," Washino related. "For that reason, I took the specimen to the museum and asked Tom Z. to identify the specimen, and of course, he excused himself from the meeting he was involved in, and examined the mosquito. When he completed the examination, he looked up at me and just smiled."

The mosquito: Aedes washinoi. Bob Washino's namesake.

"I loved the irony of it all," said his close friend Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis.  "Bob Washino being bitten by Aedes washinoi in the Washino yard! Truly awesome."

Aedes washinoi is one of five mosquitoes named for former University of California faculty:

1. Anopheles hermsi:  for William B. Herms (1876-1949), UC Berkeley
2. Anopheles freeborni, for Stanley Freeborn (1891-1960), first UC Davis chancellor (1958-59)
3. Culex boharti: for Richard Bohart (1913-2007) UC Davis, for whom the Bohart Museum of Entomology is named
4. Culex reevesi for William Reeves, (1916-2004), UC Berkeley
5. Aedes washinoi for Robert Washino, UC Davis

"Incidentally, both reevesi and boharti are rather 'shy' mosquitoes--in contrast to the personality of their namesake," Washino quipped. "They are not associated with any known disease transmission, at least for now. Breeding sites of these two species are not commonly found except in rather far-off, rural sites along the foothill or coastal areas. Adult females are not known to feed on man but prefer cold blooded animals, such as frogs.  In contrast, both freeborni and hermsi have been strongly associated with human malaria transmission in the western U.S. at least in the past. So far washinoi is not connected to any known disease transmission, but is a pesty, fierce biter of humans and seems to be expanding its distribution in California--there is no justice in naming mosquitoes!" he said.

UC Davis medical entomologists Bruce Eldridge (now emeritus) and Gregory Lanzaro named the mosquito in his honor in 1992.

Born and reared in Sacramento, Washino never strayed far from his roots, except for two years in France as a medical entomologist with the Army Medical Service Corps, 1956-1958, during the Korean War. His parents, natives of Japan, grew hops on their farm in the Sacramento Valley. Later his father became a successful Sacramento florist shop and hotel owner.

Washino said a career in biomedical sciences always intrigued him, “but there was no one event that led me to a career in medical entomology. I just happened to be at the right place at the right time.” He received his bachelor of science degree in 1954 from UC Berkeley; his master's degree in entomology from UC Davis in 1956; and his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1967. 

His career at UC Davis spanned 30 years, from 1964-1994. That included multiple terms as chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology (now the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology) and he also served as an associate dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and as a special assistant. He is a past president of both the American Mosquito Control Association and the California Mosquito and Vector Control Association, and co-author of Mosquitoes of California with Richard Bohart. He is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America.

A global authority on the ecology of mosquitoes and mosquito control agents, Washino received grants from the National Institutes of Health, United States Department of Agriculture, World Health Organization, and National Aeronautics and Space Administration and other agencies.

More locally, he was appointed by the City of Davis to the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District's Board of Trustees in 1973 and served 38 years, longer than any other trustee. He was elected president five times. For research and teaching purposes, he generously gifted his entire collection of books and journals, reprints, unpublished master of science and doctorate theses (from UC Davis, UCLA, UC Riverside) and an estimated 1000 2x2 slides to the library.  The building that houses the library, laboratory and lab staff bears his name, the Washino Laboratory.

One of the many highlights of his career: Washino received the prestigious Harry Hoogstraal Medal from the American Committee of Medical Entomology at the 54th annual meeting of the American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH), held in December 2005 in Washington, D.C.

In 2010, Washino coordinated an all-day mosquito symposium at the American Mosquito Control Association's five-day conference in Anaheim, Orange County.  He gathered together 17 U.S. and worldwide speakers, including experts from London, Japan, Australia, Portugal and Germany.

And  then, six years later...what are the odds?  His namesake,  Aedes washinoi, bit him in his own back yard.

"I think Lynn really enjoyed the irony of that incident," Washino said, smiling, "and we all had a big laugh at my expense."

Related Link:
Medical Entomologist Robert Washino Retires from Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito District Board

Robert Washino Wins Harry Hoogstraal Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Medical Entomology

Robert Washino: Fellow of Entomological Society of America