- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Visitors at the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on Sunday, Sept. 24 learned how to pin and spread butterflies and moths from entomologist Jeff Smith, curator of the museum's Lepidoptera collection.
The three-hour open house, held from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane, drew more than 100 visitors.
Smith curates the 400,000-specimen (and growing) collection. The entomologist has spread the wings of more than 200,000 butterflies and moths, or about 7000 a year, since 1988. “I do most of the work at my home (Rocklin), where I spread and identify specimens and add them to the museum collection,” he said.
An associate of the Bohart Museum and a member of the Bohart Museum Society and the Lepidopterists' Society, he was named a recipient of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences' "Friend of the College" award in 2015.
Smith covered several topics: labeling, relaxing dry specimens and spreading.
On labeling:
- Place the label next to the specimen as soon as it is spread
- Use Calibri (body) font size 3.5 to minimize paper
- Use good paper, acid free, a bright white premium
To relax dry specimens, he recommends:
- Use large plastic tub, such as Rubbermaid, Tupperware
- Place 3/4 inch of coarse kitty litter in bottom, sloppy wet with water
- Use a round piece of polyethylene foam on top of the kitty litter to place specimens on
- To prevent mold, use a few crystals of chloro-cresol on poly foam (available from BioQuip Products)
- Specimens are usually relaxed within two to three days.
On spreading, he offered these tips:
- Have a variety of spreading boards with various gaps for different body sizes
- Use wax paper on top
- Use long (1.5 inches) big-headed pins
- Obtain insect pins--most often size #2 (#3 for large bodies, #0 for very small moths) from BioQuip Products or from the Bohart Museum store
- Place specimens on pin about 5/16" from the head (width of the top of the forceps) and make sure this is perpendicular both side to side, and front to back
- Pull forewing up so the bottom edge of the wing, just past horizontal
- Pull up hindwings appropriately
- Place big-headed pins AROUND the edge of the wing through the wax paper
- Support the body of a fresh specimen with 2 pins
- Move the antennae so they are parallel with the leading edge of the forewing
- Some kinds of Lepidoptera (skippers and sphinx moths in particular) may require a #3 insect pin through the wing at a major vein near the top of the wing to prevent the wing from slipping later
- If possible, leave specimens on the spreading board for up to three to weeks to ensure that they are completely dry
It's not easy to pin a butterfly. Just ask research entomologist Tom Zavortink, a Bohart Museum associate who told us: "Personally, I am astounded by the thousands upon thousands of butterflies and moths that Jeff has prepared for display or scientific study. This is no small task because butterfly and moth specimens are usually brought from the field in envelopes or boxes with their wings folded over their backs or around their bodies, and preparing them for display or scientific study involves relaxing them in a humid chamber so their wings and legs can be manipulated, carefully spreading open the wings, positioning them on a flat surface, and securing them in that position until the specimen dries again. This is an onerous task that many entomologists, myself included, shun because we don't have the time, manual dexterity, or patience it takes to prepare quality specimens."
Smith holds two bachelor's degrees from San Jose State University: one in biology and one in environmental health, both with concentrations in entomology. In between degrees, he served four years in the Air Force as a ground crew chief on B-52s and KC-135s. The Air Force awarded him the master crew chief certificate. He saw duty in Thailand and Guam.
Smith also engages in woodworking, a craft he learned from his father. He has made thousands of drawers for the Bohart Museum and “about half are from scratch,” he said. They include 150 drawers from recycled redwood decking and fencing. He makes and donates spreading boards for open houses and for UC Davis Entomology Club clinics.
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis professor of entomology, 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, walking sticks, praying mantids, 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.
For more information, contact the bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or access the website or Facebook page.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Horticulture experts at the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden will join forces with the Yolo County Master Gardeners on Sunday, Sept. 24 to present a free workshop on "Pollinator Gardening."
The event takes place from 10 a.m. to noon in the Arboretum Teaching Nursery on Garrod Drive, UC Davis campus.
They'll tell you how to enrich your environment with bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators.
Why attend?
They offer these points on their UC Davis Arboretum website:
- Learn why creating pollinator-friendly habitats in your home landscape is of the utmost environmental importance
- Gain knowledge about the top, locally-appropriate plants for attracting hummingbirds, bees and butterflies
- Find information specific to native pollinators and attracting certain species to your garden
- Tour the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden's newest pollinator-friendly gardens
- Get the latest landscape water conservation tips, news and more from the City of Davis
- Take a pre-sale nursery tour courtesy of Nursery Manager Taylor Lewis (Actual plant sales will not be taking place until our first plant sale event on October 7.)
- Prep your shopping list for the Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden's upcoming fall plant sales
To those, we'd like to add three more reasons:
- It's a great opportunity to immerse yourself in the beauty of nature. It's about the passion, persistence and poetry of nature.
- It's exciting to see how many pollinators visit--or reside in--your garden. Plant 'em and they will come!
- It's indeed challenging, but highly rewarding to capture images of the pollinators (see below). It's also highly addictive.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Smith will show attendees how to pin butterflies during the three-hour open house. The event, free and open to the public, will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane.
"This open house purposely coincides with UC Davis dorm move-in weekend," says Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. "Our target audience is new students and their families, but everyone is welcome. The focus is how to study insects at home and in school--any age."
The UC Davis Entomology Club, headed by Chloe Shott, president, will participate. Undergraduate entomology student advisor Brandy Fleming will be on hand (tabling) to talk about classes, careers, and fun with entomology. Yang is also planning a display featuring cabbage white butterflies for educators.
Smith, a resident of Rocklin, curates the 400,000-specimen (and growing) collection. The entomologist has spread the wings of more than 200,000 butterflies and moths, or about 7000 a year, since 1988. “I do most of the work at my home (Rocklin), where I spread and identify specimens and add them to the museum collection,” he said.
“My life is dedicated to this passion of entomology,” said Smith, an associate of the Bohart Museum and a member of the Bohart Museum Society and the Lepidopterists' Society. He was named a recipient of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences' "Friend of the College" award in 2015.
“Entomology is my passion and the Bohart Museum is my cause.” He retired in 2013 from a 35-year career with Univar Environmental Science but that just means he can spend more time at the insect museum.
It's not easy to pin a butterfly. Just ask research entomologist Tom Zavortink, a Bohart Museum associate who told us: "Personally, I am astounded by the thousands upon thousands of butterflies and moths that Jeff has prepared for display or scientific study. This is no small task because butterfly and moth specimens are usually brought from the field in envelopes or boxes with their wings folded over their backs or around their bodies, and preparing them for display or scientific study involves relaxing them in a humid chamber so their wings and legs can be manipulated, carefully spreading open the wings, positioning them on a flat surface, and securing them in that position until the specimen dries again. This is an onerous task that many entomologists, myself included, shun because we don't have the time, manual dexterity, or patience it takes to prepare quality specimens."
Smith holds two bachelor's degrees from San Jose State University: one in biology and one in environmental health, both with concentrations in entomology. In between degrees, he served four years in the Air Force as a ground crew chief on B-52s and KC-135s. The Air Force awarded him the master crew chief certificate earlier than other crew members. He saw duty in Thailand and Guam.
Smith also engages in woodworking, a craft he learned from his father. To date, he has made thousands of drawers for the Bohart Museum and “about half are from scratch,” he said. They include 150 drawers from recycled redwood decking and fencing. He makes and donates spreading boards for open houses and for UC Davis Entomology Club clinics.
One of Smith's philosophies is “to leave the world better than I found it, and that pertains not only to my work in the Bohart but also to my 35-year career at Univar.”
Another involves the Golden Rule, or as he says “If you wouldn't want someone doing it to you, don't do it to them.” And a third philosophy "that I stole" from an inspirational man who teaches music to inner city youth in Los Angeles: “Love what you do, do what you love, and take the time to teach others about your passion.”
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis professor of entomology, 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, walking sticks, praying mantids, 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.
For more information, contact the bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or access the website or Facebook page.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"We'd be a shadow of what we are without Jeff," said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomoogy at UC Davis. The museum houses a global collection of nearly eight million insect specimens, which includes more than 400,000 butterflies and moths. 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. The museum is named for the late Richard M.Bohart (1913-2007), noted UC Davis professor of entomology.
The cake, decorated with a monarch butterfly motif created by a local bakery, drew Smith's attention and enthusiasm. When asked to identify it, he smiled and said: "It's an iconic monarch."
Smith won a 2015 Award of Distinction from the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences for his volunteer service. See news story.
Kimsey, who nominated him for the award, noted at the time that Smith "has saved the museum some $160,000 over a 27-year period for his volunteer service."
“You could not ask for a better friend than Jeff Smith,” she said, mentioning that he has “brought us international acclaim and saved us $160,000 through donations of specimens and materials, identification skills and his professional woodworking skills (he creates the finely crafted specimen drawers.) This does not include the thousands of hours he has donated in outreach programs that draw attention to the museum, the college and the university.”
Kimsey, who has directed the museum since 1989, remembers when Smith joined the museum. “When Jeff was working for Univar Environmental Services, a 35-year career until his retirement in 2013, he would spend some of his vacation days at the museum. Over the years Jeff took over more and more of the curation of the butterfly and moth collection. He took home literally thousands of field pinned specimens and spread their wings at home, bringing them back to the museum perfectly mounted. To date (2015) he has spread the wings on more than 200,000 butterflies and moths. This translates into something like 33,000 hours of work!”
Now, it's much more than that, but who's counting?
Not Jeff Smith.
"Entomology is my passion," he says, "and the Bohart Museum is my cause."
(Editor's Note: The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, will host an open house, "Bark Beetles and Trees, Forest Health in California," on Sunday, Aug 27 from 1 to 4 p.m. The Bohart Museum will turn into Bark Beetle Forest Central. Planning the open house is Steve Seybold, a research entomologist with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Davis, and a lecturer with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. “As of last winter, bark beetles had killed 102 million trees in California during the last drought period," Seybold said. “Tree mortality in the western USA over the past 15 years caused by native bark beetles exceeded 21 million hectares, which surpasses all other disturbances, including fire." The open house is free and open to the public. Parking is also free.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
We recently watched McCormack Hall superintendent Gloria Gonzalez of Vallejo, and her crew set up the exhibits in preparation for the crowds that will flow through the building next week.
Butterflies appear in many of the entries, including quilts, vests, needlework, paintings, photographs, and arts and crafts. As the crew worked, a butterfly fluttered through the open door, hovered over a display table, and then fluttered out. An omen?
One of the eye-opening, jaw-dropping displays is a butterfly-themed quilt made by LaQuita Tummings of Rodeo. Judges wrote, in part: "Wow, incredible design!" Indeed it is!
The adult division exhibits include a colorful vest of brilliant blossoms and majestic butterflies, sewn by Linda Douthit of Fairfield, a veteran seamstress, 4-H leader and longtime exhibitor. Laura Ryan of Vallejo entered her intricate needlework showcasing bees and blossoms; you can almost hear the bees buzz. Tina Waycie, Vallejo, is showing her quilling (paper arts); the attention to detail is amazing. In adult collections, Joanne Dalton of Vallejo, entered her case of 93 thimbles, and yes, a butterfly motif adorns one of them.
Theme of this year's Solano County Fair, established in 1949, is "This Fair's for Ewe." The grounds are located at 900 Fairgrounds Drive, Vallejo. Directors of the Solano County Fair Association, appointed by the Solano County Board of Supervisors, aim for a "positive experience for the public" through "educational, cultural, artistic, commercial and recreational programs."
The fair is open from from 3 to 11 p.m., Wednesday through Friday, and from noon to 11 p.m., Saturday and Sunday. The schedule and ticket prices are listed on the fair website, but note the three free admission days:
- Seniors' Day: Free admission all day on Wednesday, Aug. 2 or seniors 60 and better
- Kids' Day: Free admission all day on Thursday, Aug. 3 for kids ages 12 and under
- Military and First Responders Appreciation Day: Free admission all day on Friday, Aug. 4 for military, law enforcement, firefighters and their dependents
When you go, be sure to look for the monarchs in McCormack Hall. If you're lucky, a butterfly--maybe a monarch, Gulf Fritillary or Western tiger swallowtail--will flutter into the building.
Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. --Nathaniel Hawthorne