When the Northern California Lepidopterists met in February of 2019 at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis, the members and guests admired the Rod Davis fritillary specimens recently added to the Bohart collection, courtesy of Charles "Chuck" Hageman of Yuba City. 

Entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the Bohart's Lepidoptera collection, had just finished integrating them into the insect museum, which houses some 7 million insect specimens. The moths and butterfly specimens alone total more than 500,000.

Sadly, Chuck Hageman passed away Sept. 20, 2021 at age 76. His obituary in the Appeal Democrat appears in legacy.com.

The obituary pays tribute to his love of family, friends and butterflies:

"Chuck was one of those individuals who spoke very little but his presence spoke volumes. Whether it was just an utterance of a few words or his grunts about an unfavorable situation, you always knew where he stood. His love for his family, butterflies, his 1939 Chevy two door coupe and the tree filled orchards showed his passion for the things that mattered most. However, he lived a quiet life with a large footprint that people will be able to see for years to come."

"Very few people knew that Chuck had a large private butterfly collection, one of the largest in North America for Northern California butterflies. One of Chuck's many journeys with friends was along Sierra Nevada Mountains both north and south of Yuba City, where he helped in the study of a new sub-species of butterfly. In fact, this butterfly was named Speyeria Callippe Hagemani in his honor for his knowledge, and many years of field research of California butterflies. Specimens of the new butterfly are deposited and can be seen at the Los Angeles County National Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles, California. Chuck left a collection of butterflies to several different museums across the United States to include UC Davis Bohart Museum and McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity at the University of Florida." (See more.)

Smith remembers him well. "He was one of our largest donors," he said. "I went to Chuck's house several times in the past five years to bring back his huge collection that he wanted the Bohart Museum to have. His health wasn't great but we sat and talked for hours as he reminisced about his collecting years, many times with my brother in many California locales. He was, as the obituary says, a very nice and gracious man."

Chuck Hageman left a lasting legacy, one that generations of scientific researchers, butterfly enthusiasts and the general public can learn from and enjoy.

The Bohart Museum of Entomology, directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, now celebrating the 75th year of its founding, is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane. However, due to COVID-19 pandemic precautions, it is currently closed to the public but is open to scientific researchers.

Bohart Museum officials look forward to the re-opening of the insect museum and to the popular weekend open houses that were held throughout the academic year, pre-COVID.  

A “neighborly” project by entomologist Jeff Smith, the volunteer curator of the worldwide Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California Davis, has ended on a sweet note that will benefit the museum.

When Smith provided 10 framed insect displays for wall decorations at the Neighborly Pest Management, Roseville, the president-owner James “Jim” Steed gifted him with $1500, which Smith promptly donated to the museum.

"Jim knew that his check would be a donation to the Bohart Museum," Smith said, "and that was the reason for his generosity. As a past president of the statewide Pest Control Operators of California (PCOC) and the local chapter, Jim had previously gotten nice checks into the Bohart's hands and has high praise for the value of the museum." 

Smith, a longtime friend and colleague of Steed (since 1993),  requested $500. “Jim thought that was far too low,” Smith said, adding “It's a wonderful company.  Neighborly Pest Management has been in business since 1978, nearly 45 years, and is one of the most forward-thinking and professional companies I've ever known.”

“They recently did a magnificent job of remodeling the interior of their office—they did it themselves--and wanted to decorate the walls with something entomological,” Smith related.  “Since I've made these framed displays before, they thought that was perfect and said they'd like all I could make for them and would pay top dollar.”

 “For 10 displays, I suggested maybe $50 each, and Jim looked surprised and said he was thinking twice that. Obviously, it turned out to be three times that!”

 “The insect specimens,” Smith said, “are primarily from surplus material from that massive Chiapas, Mexico donation of papered bugs the Bohart Museum received in 2019, all collected in 1971-1974 by the renowned Lepidopterist Robert Wind, (1912-1975). His niece lives in Rio Linda and she was the family member who ended up with the huge amount of material that no other relative wanted.”

 For the Neighborly Pest Management project, Smith spread all the specimens, including butterflies, bees and beetles, and created the frames, using “lots of surplus glass.” 

“A flag on their wall was made from repurposed 2x6 redwood decking from the original owner's property and Jim said he wanted the USA flag to be the largest and most prominent thing in their office,” Smith commented. 

Smith praised Steed's dedication toward helping minorities get involved in pest control industry management. 

Steed and colleague Ashley Clark, director and vice president of Allenstrategic Communications (Steed worked with her on pyrethroid training) founded a national movement, Black Ownership Matters, to find ways to encourage minorities, blacks in particular, to enter pest control management.  The two launched the project in 2020, on Juneteenth (June 19), a day that commemorates the official end of slavery in the United States.

On their website, they emphasize creating equity and advancement in the pest control industry: "We are a community of individuals and organizations from across all backgrounds that have chosen to come together to support black economic advancement in the field of pest management."

“We have mentors and mentees in Black Ownership Matters,” Steed said. He recently took several mentees to a national pest management conference.

Said Smith: “They find ways to train them and get them started and they also encourage current black-owned pest businesses to continue to do well.” 

Neighborly Pest Management, a family-owned business founded on April 1, 1978 (“no fooling,” Steed quipped),  now includes 30 employees serving the pest management needs of residential, commercial, and schools, among other entities, in the five-county area of Sacramento, Placer, Yolo, Solano and El Dorado.  The team is also currently working in Solano to control the glassy-winged sharpshooter, Homalodisca vitripennis,  an agricultural pest threatening vineyards. 

Smith and Steed first met in 1993, the beginning of their 28-year friendship.  “It's a win-win for us,” said Steed. “We not only have these excellent framed specimen displays but we will always have of piece of Jeff in our office. He's a good man and we support him any way we can.” 

Smith received the 2015 “Friend of the College” award from the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences for his volunteer work in the Bohart Museum. Nominator Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, said at the time that “Jeff has spread the wings of 200,000 butterflies and moths, which translates into something like 33,000 hours of work, over a 27-year period. He  has brought us international acclaim and saved us $160,000 through donations of specimens and materials, identification skills and his professional woodworking skills. 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.”  (link to https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=18627 

To date, Smith has made 2,300 drawers for the museum, and about 350 to 400 are from repurposed redwood from old decks and old fences.  “I've spread, likely, a couple hundred thousand Leps,” Smith related. “I figure it at a rate of maybe 6,000 per year for the past 30 or so years. I started doing some sorting of the neglected Lepidoptera collection while it was still in Briggs Hall, and accelerated once it moved to the current location in the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane.  

“Right now, I'm continuing to sort and spread Leps for (Bohart lab assistant) Brennen Dyer's Delta Project.” Smith is also working on trap-caught material from Texas, and on Nov. 11 will do an evening spreading class for the UC Davis Entomology Club.  For the occasion, Smith has crafted 40 new spreading boards and will supply the club with not only the boards, but pins and hooked probes,  and “a LOT of relaxed butterflies from Chiapas, surplus material we received in 2019.”

The Bohart lepidopterist also presents information on butterflies and moths via videos, Zoom meetings, and at open houses (currently on hold due to the COVID-19 precautions).

Smith, who moved to Rocklin from San Jose in 1987, was introduced to the  Bohart Museum  collection in 1988 (then at Briggs Hall) and began volunteering that year. He is the sole curator of the Lepidoptera collection. In addition to the pens, the entomologist has also “made a lot of gifts to give to friends, including kitchen cutting boards, tissue box covers, and miscellaneous other things as needed.”

 “I love the creativity,” Smith said.  

 The Bohart Museum, home of a global collection of nearly eight million insect specimens. is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building  on Crocker Lane. The museum, currently closed to the public due to COVD-19 restrictions, is also the home of a live “petting zoo,” comprised of Madagasgar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas;  and a gift shop (now online) stocked with insect-themed jewelry, t-shirts, hoodies, books, posters and collecting equipment.  The gift shop also includes Smith's finely crafted wooden pens.

So much is happening at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis. Or about to happen!

If you're a member of the Bohart Museum Society--that's "the friends" arm of the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis--you're probably looking forward to the upcoming pre-Halloween party (invitation only). 

Or if you love science, you're probably looking forward to when the museum opens to the public. It's temporarily closed, you know, to the public due to the COVID-19 pandemic precautions. Admission when it does open? It's free. It's always been free.

But if you want to join the Bohart Museum Society, there are scores of membership benefits:

• Subscription to the Bohart Museum Society newsletter--mailed to you quarterly, as well as the electronic news emailed to you periodically
• Invitation only special events and programs member discounts on gift shop merchandise
• Members' Halloween Open House
• Access to the collections, and free information and identification services from staff
• Museum library use

Memberships are $25 for an individual; $15 for a student; $40 for a family; and $100 for a patron. And, endowment donations are gratefully received. See more information here.

75th Anniversary. The Bohart Museum, now celebrating its 75th year, is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis. It is currently open only to UC Davis and research communities. As it says on its website: "We are currently open to members of the UC Davis and research communities who are vaccinated and/or have had a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours per UC Davis policy. We need to focus on training our new interns and safely greeting the new UC Davis students first before we can open to the general public. Our store is on-line and items can be shipped or picked up curbside on Friday mornings. Please contact us by email at bmuseum@ucdavis.edu."

The Bohart Museum, the seventh largest insect collection in North America, houses nearly eight million insect specimens, collected from around the world. It also is home to a live "petting zoo" comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas, as well as an online gift shop stocked with insect-themed jewelry, clothing, books, posters and other items. 

Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, serves as the director of the  Bohart Museum, which is named for its founder, noted entomologist Richard 'Doc' Bohart, 1913-2007, a member of the UC Davis entomology faculty for more than 50 years. Kimsey was one of his last graduate students.

Kimsey writes about him: "He led an outstanding career in entomology both as a scientist and teacher. Dr. Bohart ("Doc") began his career at Davis in 1946. He became well-known for the courses he taught on general entomology, insect systematics and a summer field course in insect identification. He served as chair of the Department of Entomology from 1963 to 1967. His scientific research on insect taxonomy and systematics is unparalleled. His publications include three of the most important books on the systematics of the Hymenoptera, including the well-used volume  Sphecid Wasps of the World. His journal publications total over 200 articles. He revised many groups of insects, discovered new host-associations or geographic ranges, and described many new species."

"The collections made by him and his students during field courses form the basis for the Bohart Museum's unrivalled collection of the insect fauna of the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains," Kimsey points out. "He and his wife Margaret also contributed many specimens from their collecting trips around the world. He also provided generous personal financial support to the collection." Kimsey interviewed him in 1996 and you can access the one-hour video on this Aggie Video link.

Fundraising Project End Oct. 31. Meanwhile, the Bohart Museum is seeking donations for its traveling insect specimen displays. It has launched a CrowdFund project to raise $5000 by 11:59 p.m., Oct 31 to purchase traveling display boxes for their specimens, which include bees, butterflies and beetles. These are portable glass-topped display boxes that travel throughout Northern California to school classrooms, youth group meetings, festivals, events, museums, hospitals--and more--to help people learn about the exciting world of insect science.

“When COVID halted our in-person outreach programs, we were still able to safely loan these educational materials to teachers,” said Tabatha Yang, the Bohart Museum's education and outreach coordinator.  “Now that UC Davis is open again to students we have all these bright, students on campus with fresh and diverse perspectives,” she said. “We want to support their talent, so the funds we are raising will go to students for the creation of new traveling displays. This fleet of new educational drawers will expand and update what we can offer. Some of our current displays were created 15 years ago! One can only imagine all the places these drawers have been and all the people who have been inspired."

The minimum donation is $5, Yang said. "You can donate in honor or in memory of someone, a place, or an organism, too! There is a map (states and countries) that lights up donor locations.  Those of you with a fondness in your hearts for insects, college student experiences, science education, and/or museums, please donate to light up our map!" Access the donation page and map at https://bit.ly/3v4MoaJ 

Aggie Pride Week. As part of Aggie Pride Week or Spirit Week, the Bohart Museum hosted a mini-outdoor open house on Saturday, Oct. 16. "This was the Cal Aggie Alumni Association's fall parent weekend for students, parents and alumni," said Yang. See some of the images below.

If you love tomatoes, you probably hate hornworms.

Frankly, the garden's not big enough for both of you, and one of you has to go. It's not you. It's the hornworm.

"This one is nobody's friend if you're a gardener and like to grow tomatoes," says entomologist Jeff Smith, curator of the Bohart Museum of Entomology's Lepidoptera collection,  in his recently posted video showcasing the hornworm and its adult form, the sphinx moth (Sphingidae family).

Smith is presenting a series of short videos on the "different aspects of the collection of moths and butterflies."

In this video, Smith relates how the hornworm got its name: There's a "horn" at the end of its abdomen that looks like "a little spike."  The tobacco hornworm (Manduca sexta) and tomato hornworm (Manduca quinquemaculata) are quite similar, he points out. Both are pests on tomatoes and are often labeled as "tomato hornworms."

The origin of the name, the sphinx moth? "When the larva or caterpillar is disturbed, it rears up into an Egyptian sphinx-like pose," Smith says. 

However, good luck finding hornworms. "They are so well camouflaged, that it takes forever to find them," Smith says. One way to know they're there is "because they make a piece of poop (frass) about as big as a pea," Smith says.

When the caterpillars are attacked, "they spit tomato juice on you, which doesn't taste good."

The UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) says this about hornworms: "Hornworms feed on blossoms, leaves, and fruit. At high populations they can extensively defoliate plants and scar the fruit. They are rarely a problem in the warmer interior valleys unless natural enemies are disrupted, in which case, they can do serious damage. They are mostly problems in garden situations."

UC IPM points out that "The adult moth is a strong flier with a wingspan up to 5 inches (12 cm). Development takes about 2 months in summer; the winter is passed in the pupal stage. There are two generations a year in most areas; larvae are usually most common in midsummer, but there may be a small population peak in late summer. Infestations tend to be more severe in warm inland areas." (Read more UC IPM information here.)

The Bohart Museum of Entomology also offers online information sheets, the work of Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology. (The directory of subjects is here.)

"The larval stage (caterpillar) feeds primarily on tomatoes, but it also is known to attack other crop plants in the Solanaceae, including egg plants, peppers, and potatoes," Kimsey noted. "When the caterpillars are numerous, they can do extensive damage in a short time. The caterpillars feed on the upper portions of leaves and new stems, and occasionally, when the caterpillars are numerous, it will feed on the tomato fruit as well. They tend to remain out of direct sunlight, and so are found near the main stem of the plant during the day. They are more easily spotted when they move to the outer portions of the plant at dusk and dawn. Their presence is often first recognized by an excessive amount of frass (droppings) around the base of the plant. The hornworm caterpillar is 3½-4 inches (9-10 cm) long and pale green, with white and black markings." (Read more about the Bohart Museum's information on hornworms here.)

Meanwhile, have you ever been up close and personal to a hornworm?

We don't have any in our garden, so we borrowed a hornworm from a neighbor whose garden thrives with tomatoes and peppers. She plucked it off a pepper plant. "It seems to like the pepper plant better than the tomato," she said. 

Perhaps this one will grow to adulthood? Apparently it's a tobacco hornworm as it has a red-tipped horn. "Tomato hornworms have eight V-shaped white markings with no borders; tobacco hornworms have seven white diagonal lines with a black border. Additionally, tobacco hornworms have red horns, while tomato hornworms have dark blue or black horns," according to Wikipedia. The tobacco hornworm turns into a Carolina sphinx moth or, generally, a hawk moth. The tomato hornworm turns into a sphinx moth commonly known as a sphinx, hawk, or “hummingbird” moth.

(Editor's Note: The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis, is the home of nearly eight million insect specimens; a live "petting zoo," comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas; and a gift shop. The Bohart is temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic precautions but the gift shop is online.)