UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day sign. The 2019 Biodiversity Museum Day, the eighth annual, is set Feb. 16. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Well, it's not so much as a "best-kept secret" but a "UC Davis treasure."

Thousands attended the seventh annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, which showcased 13 museums or collections.  Billed as "a celebration of the vast diversity of life on Earth, both present and past," it's also "a celebration of science."

It took place Feb. 17. Here's the update: you can now see it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzdOuHivEms. The newly posted video is the work of talented UC Davis undergraduate student Alexander Fisher-Wagner, who filmed, edited and posted the piece. 

You can get a bird's eye view and a bug's eye view of all the activities, which ranged from ancient dinosaur bones to live praying mantises, from hawks to honey bees, and from California condor specimens to carnivorous plants. Participating were:                     

• Arboretum and Public Garden, Good Life Garden, next to the Robert Mondavi Wine and Food Science Institute, 392 Old Davis Road
• Anthropology Museum, 328 Young Hall and grounds
• Bohart Museum of Entomology, Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
• Botanical Conservatory, Greenhouses along Kleiber Hall Drive
• California Raptor Center, 340 Equine Lane, off Old Davis RoadDesign Museum, 124 Cruess Hall, off California Ave
• Center for Plant Diversity, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
• Design Museum, 124 Cruess Hall, off California Avenue
• Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, Bee Biology Road, off Hopkins Road
• Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, Room 1394, Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
• Nematode Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
• Paleontology Collection, Earth and Physical Sciences Building, 434 LaRue Road
• Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
• Viticulture and Enology Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus

The annual Biodiversity Museum Day, free and family friendly, is indeed a special occasion. All participating museums and collections have active education and outreach programs,  but the collections are not always accessible to the public, said Biodiversity Museum Day committee chair Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology.

The UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Committee is already gearing up for the eighth annual, set Feb. 16, 2019. Mark your calendars!

Bohart Museum associate Greg Kareofelas stands by the blacklighting display, which will be a highlight of the Bohart's Moth Night on July 21. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Meanwhile, the Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, is hosting a Moth Night this Saturday, July 21 from 8 to 11 p.m. Free and open to the public (and it's family friendly), the event features both indoor and outdoor displays as scientists share their love and knowledge of moths, butterflies and other insects. 

A blacklighting display (moth trap) will get underway around 9:30-10 p.m.

The Bohart Museum Moth Night is being held in conjunction with National Moth Week, July 21-29, which celebrates the beauty, life cycles and habitats of moths.

Bohart scientists will be on hand to discuss moths and answer questions. They include Bohart senior museum scientist Steve Heydon;  entomologist Jeff Smith, curator of the the moth and butterfly specimens; "Moth Man" John DeBenedictis; naturalist and photographer Greg Kareofelas; and UC Davis undergraduate entomology student Wade Spencer, who staffs the live "petting zoo," featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas.

The family craft activity is "shaping up to be colored beeswax moths on a candle," Yang said.  Free refreshments--cookies and hot chocolate--will be served.

A honey bee pollinating an almond blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

As temperatures climbed into the seventies last Saturday, honey bees foraged in the California native plant, Brandegee's sage (Salvia brandegeei). and pollinated the almond blossoms.

It seemed like spring.

Nearly 600 visitors crowded into the half-acre bee demonstration garden, the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven during the  seventh annual UC Davis Biodioversity Museum Day. The haven was one of 13 museums or collections offering special activities.

Visitors learned about bees, engaged in a catch-and-release bee activity with a vacuum device and made "feed-the-bees" seed cookies to take home.

The haven, part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is located on Bee Biology Road, next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. A six-foot-long bee sculpture, Miss Beehaven, by artist Donna Billick, co-founder and co-director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, anchors the garden. Other art, coordinated by entomology professor Diana Ullman, co-founder and director of the Art/Science Fusion Program, and Billick, also graces the garden.

The haven, installed in the fall of 2009, was named for its principal donor, the premium ice cream brand, Häagen-Dazs. Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology serves as the faculty director of the haven, and Christine Casey, academic program management officer, serves as the staff manager.

Clothing with an insect-motif in the Design Museum exhibition. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

When you attend the seventh annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day on Saturday, Feb. 17 to see 13 museums or collections, be sure to see It's Bugged: Insects' Role in Design, an exhibit in Cruess Hall that explores the connection between insects and people.

Or connects insects and people.

The display will be open from noon to 4 p.m., especially for Biodiversity Museum Day. (Note that the Design Museum exhibit is not open on Saturdays, but this Saturday it is. The event opened Jan. 8 and hours are from noon to 4 p.m. and on Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m,  through April 22. Admission is free.)

"Bugged" features the work of Department of Design faculty and graduate students, as well as displays from the Bohart Museum of Entomology and insect photos by UC Davis Ph.D alum Alex Wild, now curator of entomology at the University of Texas, Austin.

Key attractions include the amazing work of professor emerita Ann Savageau of the Department of Design. For the exhibition, Savageau created a trilogy of wall pieces made from hornet nest paper, and a set of sculptures made of wood etched into striking patterns by bark beetle larvae.

The exhibition explores the two sides of the relationship between people and insects, Savageau told the crowd at the opening reception. “The first side shows how makers, designers, architects, and artists draw upon nature's patterns to create beautiful and useful materials and structures. The second side examines the collaboration of humans and insects as producers of raw materials, such as harvested silk and red dye made from cochineal. This human-insect relationship is complex and compelling.”

 “Insects have played a significant role in human cultures across the globe for millennia," Savageau related. "They have been revered as sacred, they have been used as food, dye, and ornament. They have been inspiration for human architecture, design and art. And some insect products, namely silk and cochineal, have been big players in global trade networks, economies, and conflicts.”

“But today, insect populations are disappearing at an alarming rate, and the implications for the health of our planet are staggering. Just look at the crash of honey bee populations in the US, and its implications for so many of our crops.”

In her talk, Savageau described the bald-faced hornet,  Dolichovespula maculata, "as an animal dear to my heart, because I use the paper from its nest to create artworks. This hornet creates large paper nests that have dozens of layers of paper with air pockets in between. Inside are multiple layers of brood combs where the queen lays hundreds of eggs. The larvae are fed chewed insects by the workers."

The retired professor and now full-time artist works with the patterns etched by bark beetle larvae under the bark of various trees, including pine and fir. "Each pattern serves a specific function for the beetles and their larvae," she said. For her piece titled  "Totems," she applied metallic paints to fill in either the beetle galleries or the top layer of wood. She collected the work of six different bark beetle species, each one with a distinctive pattern.

Exhibition curator Adrienne McGraw says of "It's Bugged": “The inspiration we draw from the natural world is endless. The challenge in the exhibit was focusing our story to the links between insects and textiles and forms. We selected key pieces from UC Davis' Joann C. Stabb Design Collection and works from collaborating artists, so the connection to insects could then be explored. Some of these relationships are centuries old, while other ways people are using insects and insect behavior is relatively new. What's exciting to me is to think about all the new products, designs, and technologies that are still to come as people continue to be inspired by insects. And what better place to encourage that than a university setting where so much creative work is already going on?”

Biodiversity Museum Day is free and open to the public. The following will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.: Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology; Bohart Museum of Entomology, Raptor Center, Paleontology Collection, Arboretum and Public Garden; Phaff Yeast Culture Collection; and the Viticulture and Enology Culture Collection.

The following will be open from noon to 4 p.m.: Nematode Collection, Botanical Conservatory, Center for Plant Diversity Herbarium, Anthropology Museum, Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, and the Design Museum.

You can download maps at http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu. Capsule information is here. 

For size comparison, Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum, points at the stick insect molting. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

It walked.

When Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and UC Davis professor of entomology, glanced at a wall near the entrance of the Bohart Museum during a recent open house, she noticed something that wasn't part of the wall.

A stick insect, aka walking stick.

An escapee from the Bohart's live "petting zoo."

And it was doing what stick insects (Phasmatodea) do--it was molting.

“It should be finished by now,” Kimsey said, periodically keeping an eye on its progress.

"Twiggy" is now back in the petting zoo, awaiting the arrival of visitors to the Bohart Museum during the seventh annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 17, when the public can explore the diversity of life at 13 museums and/or collections. For free. Times will vary from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. or from noon to 4 p.m. The Bohart, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane and the home of nearly eight million insect specimens, will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. (See more information on Biodiversity Day.)

Like all insects, stick insects have a head, thorax and abdomen and six legs. Their elongated bodies mimic a stick or straw. These "bug sticks" don't move fast (is that why they're calling "walking sticks" instead of "running sticks?"), but what a perfect camouflage from predators!

Entomologists tell us that before reaching the adult stage, a stick insect may shed its skin six to nine times, depending on the species and the gender. Its outer skeleton (skin) prevents it from growing so it sheds its skin to do so.

Stick insects are a favorite at the Bohart Museum petting zoo, which also includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches, praying mantises, and tarantulas. Visitors love to hold the sticks and photograph them. They can also purchase stick insect T-shirts in the Bohart Museum's year-around gift shop.

Ever see a stick insect molting? Here's a You Tube channel that depicts the process perfectly. You can also learn about them in this Fascinating Facts About Stick Insects.

A few facts from Wikipedia:

• The genus Phobaeticus includes the world's longest insects and can reach 12 inches long.
• Many species have a secondary line of defense in the form of startle displays, spines or toxic secretions
• Phasmatodea can be found all over the world except for the Antarctic and Patagonia.
• They are most numerous in the tropics and subtropics; the greatest diversity is found in Southeast Asia and South America, followed by Australia, Central America, and the southern United States.
• The island of Borneo has more species of Phasmatodea than any other place in the world: The count: 300 species.
• Many species of phasmids are parthenogenic, meaning the females lay eggs without needing to mate with males to produce offspring.