- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
BioDivDay is Sunday. March 6 at the UC Davis Conference Center: Can't wait to see you!
That's the message the organizers of the 11th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day are spreading throughout social media.
The UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day is a free, science-based event that takes place from 11 a..m. to 3 pm. in the UC Davis Conference Center, 550 Alumni Lane. Admission and parking are free, but visitors must adhere to the COVID-19 Campus Ready guidelines. Masks will be required in accordance with campus policies. This year's event is especially geared for undergraduates and other members of the UC Davis community.
Visitors to the Conference Center will see displays from 11 museums or collections on campus in one large exposition in the ballrooms, and be able to ask questions of the scientists from the:
- Arboretum and Public Garden
- UC Davis Bee Haven
- Bohart Museum of Entomology
- Botanical Conservatory
- California Raptor Center
- Center for Plant Diversity
- Department of Anthropology Museum
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology
- Nematode Collection
- Paleontology Collection
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection
Admission and parking are free, but visitors must adhere to the COVID-19 Campus Ready guidelines. Masks will be required in accordance with campus policies, organizers said. Visitors can also sign up at the Conference Center for limited tours. Several collections or museums are offering side trips, with registration to take place at the Conference Center.
Latest updates today:
Bohart Museum of Entomology. At the Bohart Museum booth in the Conference Center, UC Davis alumnus and Bohart scientist Fran Keller, a professor at Folsom Lake College, will join Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas in discussing the state insect, the California dogface butterfly, Zerene eurydice, and its host plant, California false indigo, Amorpha californica. This is the 50th anniversary of the year that the California Legislature named the butterfly the state insect. Keller authored the children's book, The Story of the Dogface Butterfly, with photos by Kareofelas and Keller and illustrations by former UC Davis student Laine Bauer. Keller and Kareofelas collaborated on a California dogface butterfly poster that's for sale in the gift shop.
Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, will discuss the Asian giant hornet. Vespa mandarinia (nicknamed "the murder hornet" by the news media), and will show specimens of the hornet, other species of Vespa, and Vespa nests.
Nematode Collection. The nematode collection will feature mostly root-knot nematodes and Ascaris (roundworm) nematodes, according to coordinator and nematologist Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, and doctoral student Alison Coomer. The display will include:
- What's in the jar?
- Celery infected with root-knot nematodes
- Tree swallow infected with Diplotriaena
- White-tailed deer eye infected with a Thelazia species
- Peach root infected with root-knot nematodes
- Mormon crickets infected with Gordius robustus
- Lettuce infected with root-knot nematodes
- Garlic damaged by Ditylenchus dipsaci
- Horse stomach infected with three parasites: Parascaris (roundworms), tapeworms, and botfly larvae.
- Grape roots infected with root-knot nematodes
- Sweet potato infected with root-knot nematodes
- Sugar beet infected with cyst nematodes
- Peach root infected with cyst nematodes
- Sugar beet infected with root-knot nematodes
- Ascaris lumbricoides (roundworm)
- Minke whale infected infected with ascaridoid nematodes
- Heartworm of dog
Nematologist Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, explains what a nematode is on this YouTube video presented at the 2021 UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day.
So, let's see--bees, birds, bugs, plants, raptors, fossils, nematodes (aka round worms), and yeast cultures. Bring your camera, your questions to the scientists, your smile, your COVID-19 pandemic approvals and wear that mask.
And as they say: "Can't wait to see you!"
The UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day is traditionally held on the Saturday of Presidents' Day weekend. However, last year's event was virtual, and this year's event is centrally located in an exposition. For more information, access the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day website and/or connect with Instagram,Twitter, and Facebook.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you'd like to take a world tour and learn about such fascinating insects as darkling beetles, Australian walking sticks, giant African millipedes and others, be sure to sign up for the "Virtual Insect Palooza with the Insect Discovery Lab."
The program, open to all ages but limited to 25 participants, is set for 4 to 5 p.m., Friday, June 12 on Zoom, announced Norm Gershenz, chief executive officer and co-founder of the Bay Area-based SaveNature.Org. He also directs the organization's Insect Discovery Lab. He co-founded SaveNature.Org with wife Leslie Saul-Gershenz, a UC Davis scientist who holds a doctorate in entomology from the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
"Professor Norm" will lead what is being billed as a "live, wild experience featuring arthropods from around the world." Viewers will be able to ask questions at the end of the program.
SaveNature.Org is an award-winning conservation organization which presents more than 800 educational outreach programs to some 38,000 children annually. National Geographic, Time magazine, and ABC's "World News Tonight" have all spotlighted the work.
Dedicated to international conservation, SaveNature.Org has raised more than $4.7 million to help preserve thousands of acres of rain forest, coral reef and desert habitat around the world, said Gershenz, who created and developed the first Adopt-an-Acre program in the United States, as well as the award-winning Conservation Parking Meter.
His credentials include 18 years with the San Francisco Zoo as an educator, member of the animal care staff, fundraiser, and researcher. In addition, he has worked as a field biologist and naturalist in Borneo, Malaysia, India, Nepal, Costa Rica and Namibia. "I have tracked black rhinos in Zimbabwe, chased orangutans in Borneo, and stalked the elusive platypus in Australia (with his camera)," he related. In his conservation work, he has handled boas and bobcats, pandas and elephants, snow leopards and koalas, hippos and hornbills.
In 2010, Gershenz received the prestigious Elizabeth Terwilliger Prize for Conservation. In 2018 the American Association of Zookeepers presented him with the Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding work in nature conservation.
Resources:
SaveNature.Org website
SaveNature.Org Facebook
YouTube Video of Insect Discovery Lab
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
And this one, too.
And that one over there!
When UC Davis employees and their offspring visited the Bohart Museum of Entomology during the recent "Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work" Day, reactions ranged from awe to "wow!"
They held walking sticks (stick insects), Madagascar hissing cockroaches and tomato hornworms. Two youngsters held tarantulas. And all checked out the butterfly and beetle specimens.
One little girl, Olivia Bingen, 4, who was there with her father, Steve Bingen of the UC Davis Department of Music, was dressed in pink and asked the Bohart scientists if they had any pink butterflies.
"She likes pink," her father said. She also likes to play the violin.
The museum, founded in 1946 by the late Richard M. Bohart and now directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis professor of entomology, is open to the public from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m., Mondays through Fridays, except on holidays. Admission is free.
Special weekend events, free and family friendly, are held throughout the year. The next weekend event is Moth Night from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 3. Blacklighting will take place just outside the museum. Inside, the attendees will visit the museum's displays and, outside, they will see what insects are attracted to the black-lighted white sheets.
Among those scheduled to host Moth Night are John "Moth Man" DeBenedictis; senior museum scientist Steve Heydon; entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the Lepitopdera (butterflies and moths) section of the Bohart; and Greg Kareofelas, Bohart associate and naturalist.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's finals week at the University of California, Davis, and what a great opportunity to take time to de-stress...with bugs!
Wade Spencer, entomology student and associate at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, says that students studying in the UC Davis LGBTQUIA Resource Center at 397 Hutchison Drive on Tuesday, March 19, will be sharing their space with bugs, including Coco McFluffin, a Chaco golden knee tarantula that makes its home in the Bohart Museum of Entomology. The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, houses a global collection of nearly eight million insect specimens--AND a live petting zoo of dozens of critters, ranging from Madagascar hissing cockroaches to stick insects to tarantulas.
Billed as the "Finals-Week Bug Meet-n-Greet De-Stressor," the event takes place from noon to 1 p.m. in partnership with LGBTQUIA and the Bohart Museum.
The visitors include Coco McFluffin, Lucy the Gooty and Captain Mar-Vel. Here's who's on tap:
- Thorny Walking Sticks: https://species.wikimedia.org/wiki/Aretaon
- Australian Stick Insects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extatosoma_tiaratum
- Vietnamese Stick Insects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medauroidea_extradentata
- Giant Cave Cockroaches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaberus_giganteus
- Chaco Golden Knee Tarantula (Coco McFluffin): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammostola_pulchripes
- Western Black Widow (Karen): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus_hesperus
- Multi-colored Centipede (Sebastian): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scolopendra_polymorpha
- Desert Hairy Scorpion (Celeste): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadrurus_arizonensis
- Asian Forest Scorpion (Scotty): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterometrus
- African Yellow-Legged Burrowing Scorpion (yet unnamed): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opistophthalmus_glabrifrons
- Sapphire Gooty Tarantula (Lucy the Gooty): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poecilotheria_metallica#Description
- And...Wade Spencer's tiny Arizona burrowing scorpion (Captain Mar-Vel): "I don't know the scientific name of her yet and can't seem to find any info online. But she's cute and tiny!"
"It should be noted," Spencer said, "that the only venomous arthropod that will be up for touching/holding will be Coco."
Study on!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Who wouldn't, when you get an opportunity to pet a rose-haired tarantula named Snuggles, guide walking sticks "strolling" on your arm, or cradle a Madagascar hissing cockroach? Or marvel at the display of Platypsyllus castoris, an ectoparasite of beavers?
That's what awaited the 2000 visitors at the Bohart Museum of Entomology during the 104th annual UC Davis Picnic Day last Saturday, April 18.
Although the theme of the campuswide Picnic Day spanned "Where the Sun Shines," Bohart Museum officials focused on "Where the Sun Doesn't Shine." They highlighted nocturnal insects, cave-dwelling insects, and parasites, including a beetle, Platypsyllus castoris, found on the south end of a beaver.
Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart and professor of entomology at UC Davis, kept busy answering questions about the beaver display--a pelt, and a graphic of the beetle.
As Bohart Museum associate and undergraduate entomology student Wade Spencer said: "These beetles look like they are to fleas what halibut are to other fishes. Instead of the lateral compression fleas exhibit, Platyspyllus castoris are dorso-ventrally flattened, which only adds to their alien appearance. Their unique feeding and lodging preferences have given us so many good laughs, we wanted to make them the star of this year's picnic day event at the Bohart."
Entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the butterfly and moth collection at the Bohart, kept busy encouraging visitors to get acquainted with Snuggles. They held him, petted him and photographed him. Little Teddy Owens, 2 of Davis, held by his mother, Dina, high-fived Snuggles.
Another display featured scorpions: graduate student Charlotte Herbert shone a black light on them to illustrate how they glow in the dark. All scorpions fluoresce in ultraviolet light.
Visitors also learned about bees in a display featuring sweat bees, leaf-cutting bees, mason bees, bumble bees, honey bees, sunflower bees, and carpenter bees, as well as Andrena and Melissodes anthophora.
The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It is the home of the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. Special attractions include a “live” petting zoo, featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks, praying mantids and tarantulas. The museum's gift shop, open year around, offers T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.
The Bohart Museum is open to the public from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. It is closed to the public on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and on major holidays. Admission is free.
More information on the Bohart Museum is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or emailing bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or Tabatha Yang at tabyang@ucdavis.edu.
