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Butterflies? Check.

Dragonflies? Check.

Native bees? Check.

In fact, the Bohart houses more than seven million insect specimens, plus a live “petting zoo,” that includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches, tarantulas, scorpions, a millipede, and six different kinds of walking sticks, including Vietnamese walking sticks and one that the Bohart  staff has nicknamed “Avatar.”

Of Avatar, “It’s long, skinny and blue,” said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.

To accommodate folks who can’t visit the Bohart during the week, the museum will be open from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 14 and again from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 11. The museum is located at 1124 Academic Surge on California Drive.

A special focus on Sunday, Nov. 14 will be on Orthoptera, an order of insects that includes grasshoppers, crickets and katydids. The Diptera order (flies) will be showcased in December.

One of the most inquisitive and knowledgeable young visitors this year was Tobin “Toby” Jacobs Thornton (top right and below) of Nevada City. He was 4 1/2 when he visited the Bohart with his grandfather Paul Jacobs of Davis.

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Jacobs said his parents have long encouraged his interest in insects “and he has access to their books of Sierra insects and spiders and loves just looking at them, and he's devoted to the non-fiction section of his local libraries in Nevada County.”

The R. M. Bohart Museum of Entomology founded in 1946 by noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart, is dedicated to teaching, research and service.  It houses the seventh largest insect collection in North America and is worldwide in coverage. The museum is also home of the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity of California’s deserts, mountains, coast and great central valley.

It also includes a gift shop, where visitors can purchase t-shirts, sweatshirts, jewelry, note cards, books, posters, insect candy and other gifts. The insect candy includes chocolate-covered ants and crickets. A favorite is a scorpion encased in a lollipop.

The museum’s regular hours are from 8:30 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday.  It is closed on Fridays and on major holidays.

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His foe? The day-biting, tiger-striped mosquito, Aedes aegypti. It transmits a virus that causes dengue, sometimes called "break-bone fever."

It's the world’s worst insect-transmitted virus.

And it's on the rise.

Noted science writer Carl Zimmer, former senior editor of Discover who now lectures at Yale University, recently interviewed Scott for his blog and podcast, posted on the Discover website.

"Spread by mosquitoes, it can make you feel as if your bones are broken and leave you exhausted for months," writes Zimmer, who teaches Yale University students how to write about science and the environment.  "In more serious cases, people suffer uncontrollable bleeding and sometimes die. Dengue is expanding its range, and is even making incursions into the United States. Scott and I talk about what scientists know and don't know yet about dengue, and what the best strategy will be to drive the virus down."

When Scott leaves his mosquito research laboratory at UC Davis, he’s likely heading for his field stations in Peru, Thailand or Mexico to try to stop that killer mosquito from transmitting dengue.

Scott’s goal: to save lives through research, surveillance and implementation of disease prevention strategies.

“I study the patterns of human infection with dengue virus, doing detailed studies of mosquito populations and disease in humans in order to predict which prevention strategies work the best,” said Scott, who assesses risks, develops computer models and implements disease prevention strategies.

The culprit: Aedes aegypti, or the yellow-fever mosquito, that transmits dengue virus to people.

The disease: Dengue, caused by any one of four serotypes or closely related viruses known as DEN-1, DEN-2, DEN-3, or DEN-4. Nicknamed “break-bone fever,” classic dengue is characterized by high fever, headaches, muscle and joint pain, nausea, vomiting and a rash.

At risk: Some 2.5 to 3 billion people, primarily in tropical and sub-tropical countries around the world.

The prevalence: Some 50 to 100 million annual cases of debilitating dengue fever. The most severe form of the disease, dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF), strikes half a million a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An estimated 5 percent with DHF die.

There’s no vaccine. There’s no cure. The only way to prevent this disease is to kill the mosquito vector.

Scott directs the state-funded UC Mosquito Research Laboratory, based in Briggs Hall on the UC Davis campus. His team includes UC Davis associate professor and medical entomologist Anthony “Anton” Cornel, based at the Kearney Agricultural Center, Parlier; researcher Amy Morrison who lives in Iquitos, Peru and has directed their research there since 1999; program manager Leslie Sandburg; postdoctoral and graduate students; and a long list of collaborators at his field sites in Mexico, Peru and Thailand.

Listen to the podcast and learn how Thomas Scott (who at 6-foot, 6 inches tall, towers over his tiny foe) is battling this killer.

(Editor's note: Professor Scott will be teaching a winter course on medical entomology at UC Davis, discussing such diseases as malaria, dengue, West Nile virus, lyme disease, yellow fever, and river blindness.)

Ghouls just like to have fun at Halloween.

So do entomologists.

When the Bohart Museum of Entomology. located at 1124 Academic Surge, University of California, Davis, holds its annual Halloween Open House, guests are in for a real treat.

A few tricks, too--in the form of tricky costumes.

This year forensic entomologist Bob Kimsey, dressed in a ghillie suit, the kind of camouflage clothing turkey hunters wear. Note: No turkeys were harmed in the wearing of the suit.

Graduate student Matan Shelomi looked just like Billy the Exterminator.

Bohart Museum director Lynn Kimsey, who as the former chair of the Department of Entomology, helped coordinate the honey bee program and activities during her tenure, dressed as...you guessed it...a queen bee.

Community ecologist Louie Yang, assistant professor of entomology, captured a few images, including one of Kimsey with another past chair, Oscar Bacon. A black widow spider hovered nearby.

Year around, the Bohart is home to seven million insect specimens, and a few live ones--or what Kimsey calls "the petting zoo." The zoo includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches, Vietnamese walking sticks and assorted other critters.

If the "petting zoo" critters could talk, they'd still be talking about the director disguised as a queen bee, a graduate student posing as an exterminator and a forensic entomologist dressed in a ghillie suit.

Meanwhile, the Bohart Museum is gearing up for two open house days: Sunday, Nov. 14 from 1 to 4 p.m., and Saturday, Dec. 11 from 1 to 4 p.m. Those are in addition to the regular weekday hours.

Don't expect any queen bees, exterminators or ghillie suits there, though.

What's a fly doing there?

Just soaking up the sun.

A fly that landed on one of the two colorfully painted beehive columns that grace the entrance to the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at the University of California, Davis, seemed like part of the scene.

The haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden planted next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, draws many a visitor--and many an insect. It is open year around.

We spotted this fly next to a painting of a honey bee in flight.

It knows a good spot when it sees one.