- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Assassin flies--so fascinating--are also commonly referred to as robber flies, and that's the very insect that UC Davis doctoral alumna Charlotte Herbert Alberts will zero in on when she presents her research at the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar.
She'll discuss "Assassin Fly (Diptera: Asilidae) Systematics and Predator Ecology," at 4:10 p.m., Monday, Nov. 13 via Zoom only. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672
"Assassin flies (Diptera: Asilidae) are a diverse family that plays an essential ecological role as top aerial and venomous predators," she writes in her abstract. "Little is known about the evolution of their predatory habits. This study provides a novel phylogenetic hypothesis of Asilidae along with prey preference and ancestral state reconstruction in a maximum likelihood framework. This study is based on 176 assassin fly species, 35 Asiloidea outgroup species, 3,400 prey preference records accumulated from literature and museum collections, and approximately 7,913 bp of nuclear DNA from five genes (18S and 28S rDNA, AATS, CAD, and EF-1a protein-encoding DNA) and mitochondrial DNA from one gene (COI)."
"Of the 12 asilid subfamilies included in the analysis the monophyly of six was supported," she continued. "We used ancestral state reconstruction and stochastic character mapping to test whether a polyphagous arthropod predator is the ancestral state for Asilidae. Assassin flies are polyphagous arthropod predators, with specialized arthropod prey preferences evolving 20 independently across the Asilidae phylogeny. I will also summarize my other dissertation chapter, a review of Nearctic Saropogon with a new species description."
Alberts, who enjoys systematics, phylogenetics, insect biotechnology, genomics, speciation, and macroevolution, received her doctorate from UC Davis in 2023. She and her husband, George, and their two children are residents of Silver Spring, Md.
A native of Plainfield, N.H, Charlotte is a 2015 graduate of St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y., where she majored in conservation biology and developed an interest in assassin flies--and in celebrating World Robber Fly Day every April 30.
Why assassin flies? “I chose assassin flies because I fell in love researching them as an undergraduate at St. Lawrence University,” she said. "They are fascinating flies and I like that they can immediately change someone's perspective of flies. They are venomous, predatory flies that eat other insects! And they sometimes even look exactly like the creatures they eat. Example: bumble bees!”
Seminar coordinator is Brian Johnson, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. For Zoom technical issues, he may be reached at brnjohnson@ucdavis.edu. The list of seminars is posted here.

- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Just ask Griffin Alberts, 3, whose mother, Charlotte Herbert Alberts, received her doctorate in entomology June 15 at the UC Davis Graduate Studies Program commencement ceremony in the University Credit Union Center.
Charlotte donned a dark blue robe decorated with a gold-and-black butterfly pin and topped it off with a matching blue mortarboard, "the wizard hat."
Charlotte, who enrolled in the UC Davis doctoral program in 2015, described the ceremony "as especially meaningful and heartwarming." During her studies, she
- married her sweetheart, George Alberts, in 2018;
- moved cross-country to Silver Spring, Md., in 2020, during the COVID pandemic;
- birthed two children (Griffin, now 3, and Marcy, 7 months); and
- published two of her dissertation chapters on assassin flies, also known as robber flies.
Griffin could hardly wait to see "Mama become a wizard." Following the commencement, he delighted in trying on "Mama's Wizard Hat." The next day, when his grandparents asked him his favorite part of the ceremony, he quickly responded: "Watching Mama become a wizard!"
"It was great closure to walk across the stage!"Alberts said. "It was a non-linear adventure, with many bumps and hurdles along the way. But it's amazing feeling to finally cross the stage and be done! Especially with my parents, husband George, and my children watching!" (Watch the ceremony on YouTube)
Just recently Charlotte served as a teaching assistant for the Entomology 001 course, “Art, Science and the World of Insects," taught by UC Davis distinguished professor/artist Diane Ullman.
"Charlotte is an excellent scientist and fantastic artist," said Ullman, who chaired the UC Davis Department of Entomology in 2004-2005.
Ullman served as Charlotte's principal investigator and advisor. Thesis committee members Torsten Dikow and Jason Bond, also advised her. Dikow is a research entomologist and curator of Diptera and aquatic insects, Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, and Professor Bond is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Why assassin flies? “I chose assassin flies because I fell in love researching them as an undergraduate at St. Lawrence University,” she said. ‘They are fascinating flies and I like that they can immediately change someone's perspective of flies. Assassin flies are venomous, predatory flies that eat other insects! And they sometimes even look exactly like the creatures they eat. Example: bumble bees!”
Charlotte interned at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in the summer of 2014, working with Dikow on "identifying-to-genus" specimens of Asiliae. A graduate student fellowship followed (July-September 2016), with Dikow guiding her as her advisor.
"I currently work at the Smithsonian, publishing my last two chapters of my dissertation," Charlotte said. "I'm applying to post docs in the fall and taking the summer to enjoy time with my kids as much as possible!"
Looking back, the newly capped Dr. Alberts reiterated that she couldn't have done it without the support of her family, friends and advisors. Last year, following the publication of her first journal article (Zookeys: A New Species of Saropogon Loew, 1847 (Diptera, Asilidae) from Arizona, with a Review of the Nearctic Species North of Mexico), she enthused: “My family brings so much joy to my life, and fuels me to push forward, one step at a time!”
All those steps led to another cross-country trip, this time a return trip from Maryland to California to receive that much-anticipated doctorate.
And to don that "wizard hat."
If a wizard is defined as "a very skillful or talented person," then Griffin absolutely nailed it.
"Mama," he says matter-of-factly, "is a wizard."


- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Now she has another day to celebrate: she recently published the first chapter of her dissertation on a new species of robber flies (also called assassin flies), in ZooKeys.
Alberts' paper, “A New Species of Saropogon Loew, 1847 (Diptera, Asilidae) from Arizona, with a Review of the Nearctic Species North of Mexico,” is her first journal publication.
“This new species of Saropogon (family Asilidae) was a known new species when it was collected for the first time in 1964,” Alberts said. “It wasn't until a community scientist posted pictures of this beautiful ‘fire-like' species to iNaturalist and BugGuide and requested identification that the description of this new species as well as a review of the entire Nearctic Saropogon, north of Mexico, became a priority. Publications like this are a great example of why community scientist and scientist engagement are so important. Websites like iNaturalist and BugGuide are an incredible resource for both and facilitate the finding and describing of new species.”
“This publication," Alberts said, "stands as the first chapter in my dissertation 'Assassin Fly (Diptera: Asilidae) Systematics and Predator Ecology.' After I receive my degree, my other two chapters will be published—hopefully shortly: ‘Chapter 2: Over 3400 Predator-Prey Records for Assassin Flies (Insecta: Diptera: Asilidae), Compiled from United States Entomological Collections' and ‘Chapter 3: A Molecular Phylogeny of Assassin Flies (Diptera: Asilidae) with Ancestral State Reconstruction of Arthropod Prey Preference.' ”
Alberts praised the work of macro photographer Jeff Gruber of Madison, Wisc., a regular contributor to BugGuide and iNaturalist who provided the Saropogon pyrodes image in ZooKeys, and UC Davis alumna Keely Davies, the illustration. Davies (biognome.art on Instagram) holds a bachelor's degree in animal biology (2019) and a degree in scientific illustration (2021) from California State University, Monterey Bay.
She moved cross-country during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to finish her dissertation, all the while tackling multiple obstacles and health issues.
It's been a 5-year whirlwind: marriage in 2018 to artist George Albert, birth of their son Griffin in April 2020, and birth of their daughter Marceline “Marcy” in October 2022.
“I truly commend Charlotte for her recent publication of the first chapter of her dissertation," said Diane Ullman, UC Davis distinguished professor and a former chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology. “She has overcome many obstacles, and I deeply respect her capacity to balance the science and research she loves, with being a mother of two, a wife and a devoted daughter.”
A resident of Silver Spring, Md., Charlotte enrolled in the UC Davis entomology graduate program in 2015, and anticipates receiving her doctorate in "no later than June 2023—hopefully before."
While at UC Davis, her accomplishments included serving as a teaching assistant for Professor Ullman in Entomology 001, “Art, Science and the World of Insects,” an art-science fusion course.
“Charlotte is a fantastic artist, as well as an excellent scientist,” Ullman said. I look forward to watching her as she finishes her Ph.D. and develops her career. My own daughter was born the year after I finished my Ph.D., and I certainly remember the challenge of being a mother, a wife, and taking care of aging parents while working to establish an academic career."
“Without a doubt," Ullman said, "I would not change a thing—I feel enormously grateful for the joy of my family, and for having the opportunity to simultaneously enjoy a full career in the sciences, as well as connecting art and science.”
A native of Plainfield, N.H, Charlotte is a 2015 graduate of St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y., where she majored in conservation biology and developed an interest in assassin flies--and in celebrating World Robber Fly Day every April 30.
Why assassin flies? “I chose assassin flies because I fell in love researching them as an undergraduate at St. Lawrence University,” she said. "They are fascinating flies and I like that they can immediately change someone's perspective of flies. They are venomous, predatory flies that eat other insects! And they sometimes even look exactly like the creatures they eat. Example: bumble bees!”
At UC Davis, she worked on the identification and database of the Asilidae collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology from August 2015 until June 2021, while also engaged in numerous art projects and serving a year as secretary of the Entomology Graduate Student Association.
Charlotte has collected insects in 16 states and four countries, including Belize, Namibia, and Sweden. She presented a virtual seminar on “Asilidae of Belize” at the 2021 Entomological Society of America meeting.
How difficult is it to juggle so many roles? “I would be lying if I said it was easy,” Alberts said. “Being a mom, a wife, and a graduate student is a significant challenge. Balancing work and life is a skill that no one can teach you and takes a lot of trial and error. Thankfully, with the support and patience from my principal investigator (Diane Ullman), my advisor (UC Davis distinguished professor Rick Karban), my thesis committee (Ullman, research advisor Torsten Dikow of NNMH, and Jason Bond, Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, Department of Entomology and Nematology, and associate dean, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences), my husband, and family, I have been able to continue to work on my PhD through a pandemic, multiple health issues, moving across the country, and having two children. Though being a mom and a graduate student is a lot of work, and exhausting, I wouldn't change it for the world. My family brings so much joy to my life and fuels me to push forward, one step at a time!”
Alberts noted that being a graduate student “has allowed me more flexibility as a working mom to also care for my children than a typical 9 to 5 job. Instead of putting the kids in daycare, I have chosen to work during nap times, after and before bedtime, for chunks during the day when my husband can take over, weekends, and during my son's preschool, twice a week. Sometimes it's challenging to not have the same routine every day. and there are never enough hours in a day, but I do get to be a part of my children's childhoods, and I am forever grateful for that!”
“Being a mom and a graduate student means that I am learning every day how to be more creative and flexible with my time,” she said. “I've learned how to modify my workspace to be available to my children. One of the many ways that having children has changed me is that I have less anxiety about my work. I used to sit on an email sometimes for days because of the fear of not being good enough or doing something wrong. Or sometimes, I wouldn't ask for help with something or ask how something was done because of the fear of being judged for not being able to do it myself. Since having my children, I've had to push my anxieties and fears aside because I simply don't have the time I used to have to worry about such things. I've learned to accept help from others and that I am not expected to know everything, especially in graduate school.”
Alberts remembers how much she liked interning at NMNH in the summer of 2014 and working with Dikow on identifying specimens of Asilidae to genus. She then won a graduate student fellowship (July-September 2016) at NMNH; Dikow served as her advisor. "I hope to do my postdoctoral fellowship there," she said.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Alberts is geared toward finishing her dissertation while balancing her work-home life. “My family brings so much joy to my life,” she reiterated, “and fuels me to push forward, one step at a time!”

- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"World Robber Day?" you ask.
No, "World Robber Fly Day."
Among those celebrating this special day is doctoral candidate Charlotte Herbert Alberts of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of California, Davis, where she studies robber flies (Diptera: Asilidae) with distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology.
World Robber Day takes place every April 30. What's different this year? Well, the COVID-19 pandemic, for one. And she and husband George now have a darling baby boy, Griffin, born in April 2020.
Contrary to popular opinion, Griffin's first word was not "Asilidae." (It was "Hello.") And yes, his crib contains a robber fly, a gift crocheted by Rebecca Godwin of the Jason Bond lab. She is now an assistant professor of biology at Piedmont University, Demorest, Ga.
"I think the robber fly looks like a Holococephala sp.," Charlotte says.
Globally, there are more than 7500 described species of robber flies. Most people have neither seen nor heard of the insects. "This anonymity is probably due to a variety of reasons," she says. "Many people call them assassin flies because of their tendency to look like other insects, in particular, wasps or bumble bees." They are also territorial, with one or two individuals in a given area. "It can take a while to find your first robber fly, but once you do, you will start to see them all over the place!"
Where can you find them? "Go into the woods and look for sunny spots with areas for the flies to perch on," Charlotte says. "They mostly perch on the flat surface of a leaf in the sun, or at the very tip of a pointy twig. From their perch, they can hunt for insect prey in flight. Once they spot prey, the assassin fly quickly intercepts it in flight and immediately pierces it with its hypodermic needle-like mouthparts to inject a paralytic neurotoxin to subdue it. Pre-digestive enzymes are also inserted to reduce the innards into a smoothie-like concoction, which the assassin fly feeds on through the needle-like hypopharynx."
"Despite being venomous and highly voracious predators, assassin flies are no danger to us! I caught my first assassin fly in the palm of my hand! Because they are top predators in their world, they are not very fearful of people. I routinely have had them perch on me to hunt prey. But be careful, some of the larger assassin flies can pierce the skin with a defensive bite if they are aggravated enough. Their bites have been compared to a honey bee sting."
Charlotte points out that "All insects play essential ecosystem roles that directly or indirectly affect our daily lives, whether through pollination, population control of pests, decomposition, product production, and more. Insects, and especially flies, face a stigma that is difficult to overcome. Assassin flies are a fantastic, charismatic example of a family of flies that are generally unknown by the public and yet is one of the most speciose and helpful in pest population control. I have regularly played with the idea of keeping a couple as house pets to control the other unwanted flying insects that make it into our house."
Charlotte, whose major roles currently include entomologist, artist, wife and mother, developed her love of entomology on the family farm in New Hampshire. She remembers her mother reading "Charlotte's Web" to her and being delighted that "a spider shared my name." The farm yielded scores of insects and spiders that fascinated her. "I couldn't understand why people hated spiders and insects so much. When handled gently and with love, they never bit or hurt me so I saw no reason to be scared of them...they were just misunderstood."
Little Griffin is following in her footsteps. Next year he'll probably say "Happy Robber Fly Day."
Or maybe "Happy Asilidae Day."


- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
He hid it well.
"It's okay," he said quietly. "I'm okay."
But what happened to him wasn't okay then, and it isn't okay now.
On Saturday afternoon, Sept. 21, we greeted Syed Fahad Shah, a visiting scholar at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, as he cut circles lettered with "I ate a bug at the Bohart Museum." He and doctoral student Charlotte Herbert Alberts were helping visitors make buttons during the Bohart Museum open house on entomophagy.
When the open house ended, Bohart Museum education and outreach coordinator Tabatha Yang asked me: "Did you hear what happened to Shah last night?" I had not.
"He got robbed at gunpoint when he was walking home last night on Russell Boulevard," she said.
It happened the previous night (Friday night, Sept. 20). A robber, aided by an accomplice, stole the entomologist's wallet containing his rent money and credit cards, his newly purchased laptop, and an external hard drive containing scientific data.
Shah, a lecturer in the Department of Entomology, University of Agriculture, Peshawar, Pakistan, was heading home to his apartment after a long day working in the lab. He was without a bike Friday (it had a flat tire).
As he walked along Russell Boulevard, near Lake Boulevard, west of Highway 113, he noticed a car, its emergency lights flashing, parked on the other side of the road (north).
The suspect, described as about six-feet tall, between 20 and 30 years old, with curly hair and a dark bandanna covering his face, demanded, one by one, his wallet, his cell phone and then his backpack. The culprit then heaved Shah's cell phone into the field, and bolted to the car where his accomplice, the driver, awaited. The car headed west.
Shah described the car as a sedan, “like a Corolla,” and “dark in in color with rectangular back lights.” He retrieved his phone and quickly dialed the police. “The police arrived within five minutes and recorded my statement,” he said.
His black Armour Hustle backpack contained a laptop computer delivered to him only Monday, Sept. 9 at the Bohart Museum. His most valuable possession, however, was an external hard drive containing all his research data and lectures. It is a Seagate 1 terabyte hard drive.
At UC Davis, Shah is studying parasitoid wasps in the family Pteromalidae under the guidance of Bohart senior museum scientist Steve Heydon.
In an announcement to the Department of Entomology and Nematology, Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology, reported that Shah “filed a police report but that probably won't help get his equipment back. The data is irreplaceable but we hope to help him replace the things stolen, so we have started a GoFundMe page to raise the needed fund."
The GoFundMe account, seeking $2000, is at https://bit.ly/2ldZ3ZF. For more information, contact the Bohart Museum at (530) 752-0493 or Lynn Kimsey at lskimsey@ucdavis.edu or Tabatha Yang at tabyang@ucdavis.edu.
Here's hoping that we can help Shaw recoup his losses, and maybe, just maybe, a miracle will occur and someone will find and return his external hard drive. "I only wish for my hard drive back."

