Entomologist Jeff Smith shows butterfly specimens to a Bohart Museum visitor. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) collection, says "I believe we have half a million Lepitoptera in our collection, and it is likely 60 percent moths and 40 percent butterflies."

What can visitors expect to see at the Bohart Museum during the four-hour open house from 9 to 1 p.m. on Biodiversity Museum Day? The Bohart will be one of 13 museums or collections open to the public and the event if free and family friendly.

"They will see thousands of species of butterflies--and maybe moths if we open those aisles as well--that they have never seen before," Smith says. "They can learn about the defensive strategies these insects use for survival, such as camouflage, warning coloration, mimicry of other species. We love to teach about the importance of Lepidoptera in the environment, either to their habitat directly or possibly as an indicator of the health of their habitat. And, of course, they can be amazed at the beauty of these insects."

This is truly a global collection.

"We have specimens from all over the world, from every continent," Smith notes. "We are especially strong, of course, in North American material but also strong in Central and South America, and these areas represent much of our continuing growth. We have a great deal of material from Papua New Guinea, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, and other eastern Asian countries. We have a great amount of material from Africa, particularly Zambia and Democratic Republic of the Congo. We are especially strong with northern Mexico moths, much of which likely represents species still undescribed by taxonomists."

Are endangered or threatened butterflies in the collection? Yes.

"We do have examples of most of the threatened and endangered species of butterflies, and even examples of some of the butterfly species now extinct (due to destruction of habitat by urbanization). Due to wonderful donations over the decades we have examples of very rare species from Asia and Africa, as well as a growing collection of the extraordinary Birdwing Butterflies from the Indonesian-Australian region."

The Bohart's monarch butterfly specimens comprise five drawers and they include specimens from the Pacific Islands, Australia and Eastern Asia, as well as the United States.

"Without a doubt, the biggest 'Wow Factor' comes from the huge and brilliant metallic blue Morpho butterflies from tropical America," Smith points out. "We also have four drawers of the Atlas moths from Asia, the largest insects in the world. We have specimens of the White Witch moth, with the widest wingspan of any Lepidoptera. We have many drawers of Asian swallowtails that are brilliant metallic blue and green, as well as the striking Birdwing Butterflies that are green, blue, gold, and HUGE."

Smith himself has collected many of them. "I have not kept track, but I have been passionate about Lepidoptera since 1967, have made 12 research trips to Latin America, and probably have collected 50,000 to 60,000 specimens myself, all of which reside in the Bohart collection."

Does he have a favorite?

"Oddly, my favorite group of butterflies may be the Arctics (genus Oeneis), which occur throughout the western United States, Canada, and to Alaska. I like them due to their habitat, normally, of high mountain areas, and they remind me of the thrill I feel when hiking in these areas. My favorite moths could be the wasp-mimics in the Arctiid moths, the subfamily Ctenuchinae. Hundreds of different species are found in the Neo-Tropics and their amazing colors and often strong resemblance to wasps intrigues me."

Smith, a resident of Rocklin, received a 2015 “Friend of the College” award from the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences for his volunteer work, including preparing specimens and organizing the  collection. At the time he had spread the wings of more than 200,000 butterflies and moths, amounting to 33,000 hours of volunteer service.

Today it's many more. Many, many more.

“Entomology is my passion," he says, "and the Bohart Museum is my cause.”

Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and UC Davis professor of entomology, who nominated Smith for the award, praised him for completely reorganizing the butterfly and moth collection. “It's no small feat to rearrange this many specimens, housed in roughly one thousand drawers,” she said. “Many thousands of the specimens needed to be identified, and the taxonomy required extensive updating and reorganization.”

In her nomination letter, she wrote that “You could not ask for a better friend than Jeff Smith. 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.”

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."

The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. 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. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum.

Special attractions include a “live” petting zoo, featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas. Visitors are invited to hold the insects and photograph them. The museum's gift shop, open year around, includes 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 and on major holidays. Admission is free. Open houses, focusing on specific themes, are held on weekends throughout the academic year. More information on the Bohart Museum is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or Tabatha Yang, education and public outreach coordinator at tabyang@ucdavis.edu

UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day
The UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, always held the Saturday of Presidents' Day weekend, is billed as a “free, educational event for the community where visitors get to meet and talk with UC Davis scientists from undergraduate students to staff to emeritus professors and see amazing objects and organisms from the world around us.” Parking is also free. Maps are available on the Biodiversity Museum Day website at http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/.

These seven collections will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.:

• Arboretum and Public Garden, Good Life Garden, next to the Robert Mondavi Institute, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
• Bohart Museum of Entomology, Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
• California Raptor Center, 340 Equine Lane, off Old Davis Road
• Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, Room 1394, Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
• 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 following will be open from noon to 4 p.m.:

• Anthropology Museum, 328 Young Hall and grounds
• Botanical Conservatory, Greenhouses along Kleiber Hall Drive
• Center for Plant Diversity, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
• Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, Bee Biology Road, off Hopkins Road (take West Hutchison Drive to Hopkins)
• Nematode Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
• Marine Invertebrate Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive

Future entomologist Delsin Russell, 9, of Vacaville received a Mexican redknee tarantula from Santa and shared it with scientists at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's open house on Jan. 12. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Oh, you didn't get yours?

Well, Delsin Russell, 9, of Vacaville, did, and he and his mother journeyed Saturday, Jan. 12 to the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on the University of California, Davis, campus, to show it to scientists and perhaps get it sexed. Male or female? That's still uncertain.

Russell, wearing a purple t-shirt lettered with "Easily Distracted by Bugs," said Santa knew what he wanted and delivered his much-wanted--and now much-cherished--tarantula to him.

According to Wikipedia, the Mexican redknee tarantula, as the name implies, is a native of Mexico: "It's a popular choice as pets among tarantula keepers."

No strangers to the Bohart Museum, Delsin and his mother, Beth Russell, attended the insect museum's open house last August featuring extreme insects.  (Delsin wore an insect-themed shirt, "I like big bugs; I cannot lie.") The open house featured "insects that can live in intense heat, cold, acidity or salinity." A wide variety insects, including flies, beetles, wasps and more, can live in these extreme conditions. Some species are even attracted to fire, said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and UC Davis professor of entomology.

As for Delsin, he aims for a career as an entomologist. Currently, he's enrolled in a beekeeping project in the Vaca Valley 4-H Club--and taking very good care of his Mexican redknee tarantula.

Goes to prove that Santa isn't afraid of tarantulas. They're welcome in his sleigh.

Three More Open Houses Scheduled at Bohart Museum

The Bohart Museum is planning three more open houses during the academic year.

• Saturday, Feb. 16, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., during campuswide Biodiversity Museum Day. 
• Saturday, March 9, from 1 to 4 p.m. for its "Eight-Legged Wonders" (This is a spider theme, featuring the work of the Jason Bond lab)
• Saturday, April 13 from 10 to 3 p.m. as part of the UC Davis Picnic Day.

The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus, is the home of nearly eight million insect specimens, plus a year-around gift shop and a live "petting zoo" (think Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas) and a year-around gift shop. It is open to the general public Mondays through Thursdays, from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m. It hosts  occasional, weekend open houses​. Admission is free. Further information is available on the Bohart Museum website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/ or contact (530) 753-0493 or bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.

Spider Glue Seminar, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

Wednesday, April 24 is the date of a UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar to be presented by postdoctoral researcher Sarah Stellwagen of the University of Maryland, College Park. She will speak on “Toward Spider Glue: From Material Properties to Sequencing the Longest Silk Family Gene" from 4:10 to 5 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall, located on Kleiber Hall Drive. (See new story on spider glue.) Medical entomologist Geoffrey Attardo, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is coordinating the seminars. 

Cindy Truong, a UC Davis undergraduate student, studies fruit flies in the Joanna Chiu lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. At the Bohart Museum open house on Jan. 12, she will expand on "How flies tell time."

No, time's fun when you're studying flies!

Take it from the fly researchers at the University of California, Davis, who will present their work at the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 12 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane. The event, themed “Time's Fun When You're Studying Flies," is free, open to the public, and family friendly.

The open house will showcase botflies, spotted-wing drosophilas, assassin flies, Mediterranean fruit flies, mosquitoes and other members of the Diptera order. Ten scientists, including undergraduate students, graduate students and a visiting scholar, will participate. They will displaying specimens, photos and field equipment and chat with the public.

"Besides checking out the flies, this is also a good time for visitors to inquire about graduate school, ask about starting research projects, and to meet people working in forensics, evolution, agriculture, animal behavior, genetics, geography, and home pests, among other topics," said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator.

Entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the Bohart's butterfly and moth section, will be on hand to open the Diptera section. "He will dust off and put on his pest industry hat to talk about those relevant flies," Yang said.

A family craft activity is also planned.

Among the fly researchers participating is fourth-year doctoral candidate Charlotte Herbert Alberts, who studies assassin fly (Asilidae) systematics with major professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology,  UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

“Assassin flies are one of the only families of flies that are predatory (on other insects) both in their larval and adult stages,” Alberts says. 

Other interesting facts about assassin flies:

1. They are venomous! Their venom both immobilizes their prey and starts extra-oral digestion.
2. They have very fancy facial hair (beards and mustaches) called a mystax, thought to protect their face while they catch and eat their prey.
3. Some assassin flies are very selective in their prey choice and may have specialized venom to help them overcome their prey. 
4. There are more than 7,500 species found all over the world! 

Spotted-wing drosophila on a raspberry. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

 Graduate student Socrates Letana, who also studies with major professor Lynn Kimsey. researches the evolution and diversification of botflies (Oestridae) "in the global mammal host-space with special emphasis on the New World." Part of his research interests include Diptera systematics, biogeography and Southeast Asian biodiversity. He is a research associate with the California State Collection of Arthropods, California Department of Food and Agriculture.

The larvae of botflies are internal parasites of mammals; some species grow in the host's flesh and others within the gut. The Dermatobia hominis is the only species of botfly known to parasitize humans routinely.

Said Letana: "I will be using the pinned and alcohol-preserved materials from the Bohart collection. Also, I am thinking of using my laptop just to show some photos from other museum collections. Some people might be a little squeamish about this group of flies and I will try my best not to scare them away."

UC Davis doctoral student Caroline Wright Larsen of the Graduate Group in Ecology, will discuss her research on non-native tephritid flies, including the Mediterranean fruit fly. She studies with major professor James R. Carey, distinguished professor of entomology. A Bio Boot Camp instructor, part of the Bohart Museum program, she attended Bryn Mawr College outside of Philadelphia for her undergraduate degree, "during which I spent six months living in Kruger National Park, South Africa doing insect biodiversity research." She began her graduate studies in 2011 at U.C. Davis "where I explore the ways in which difficult-to-detect populations of non-native tephritid flies move over space and time in California."

 UC Davis undergraduate researcher Cindy Truong of the Joanna Chiu lab, will be showing flies in various life stages and have coloring pages for kids. "We primarily study circadian rhythm, which is the sleep and wake cycle. More specifically we study the mechanisms in which 'clock proteins' go through in order to maintain this cycle." She will expand on "How flies tell time.”

Christine Tabuloc, an undergraduate researcher in the Chiu lab. will discuss her work on fruit flies. "My current focus is to investigate the effects of climatic change on gene expression of an invasive pest and determine whether there is a correlation to resistance and survival," she said. "In addition to pest management research, I am also studying a kinase of a core clock protein in Drosophila melanogaster and hoping to dissect its functional contribution to the molecular oscillator."

Others from the Chiu lab participating will be Yao Cai, a doctoral graduate student who studies genetic mechanisms underlying the regulation of organismal behavior, and undergraduate researcher Christopher Ochoa.

Among the other scientists participating:

• Kathlyne-Inez Soukhaseum of the Frank Zalom lab will talk about her research on the spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophilasuzukii, a major agricultural pest that invaded California in 2008.
• Danielle Wishon, a forsenic entomologist who holds a bachelor's degree in entomology from UC Davis, will discuss bed bugs and other pests.
• Nermeen Raffat, visiting scholar in the Sharon Lawler  lab, will focus on mosquito larvae. He is working on "the effect of copper sulphate and other toxicants on the development and anti-predatory behavior of the mosquitoes larvae."

The Bohart Museum, founded in 1946 by UC Davis entomologist Richard “Doc” Bohart (1913-2007), is the home of nearly eight million insect specimens, plus a year-around gift shop and live "petting zoo" that includes Madagascar hissing corckroaces, stick insects, tarantulas and praying mantids. The gift shop is stocked with   newly published calendars, books, jewlery, t-shirts, insect-collecting equipment, insect-themed candy, and stuffed animals.

The Bohart Museum is open to the general public Mondays through Thursdays, from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m.,   plus occasional, weekend open houses​. Admission is free. The next weekend open house is from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 18 and centers around urban entomology..

Further information is available on the Bohart Museum website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/ or contact (530) 753-0493 or bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.

UC Davis student Karissa Merritt, artist and entomologist (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

They do.

Just check out the Bohart Museum of Entomology's newly published calendar.

"Mr. January" is a locust sitting quite comfortably in a chair--a swivel chair at that--and eagerly accessing a dating site. "You've got a match!" the screen informs him.

Yippee! You can almost hear him yelling "Yippee."

The caption reads: "Normally, locusts are introverted creatures; they do not socialize unless it is for reproduction."

The rest of the story:  Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and longtime professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, collects unusual answers on the student tests she administers. You can imagine how many sentences comprise her collection: she joined the faculty back in 1989!

The "dating locust" is one of 12 from the Lynn Kimsey Prized Collection that made it into the Bohart's first-ever calendar.   UC Davis entomology major Karissa Merritt, a talented artist and scientist known for her creativity and sense of humor, interpreted and illustrated all the sentences.

Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The calendar, a project of the non-profit Bohart Museum Society, sells for $12, plus tax, at the Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane. (More information is available on the website or by contacting bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or  (530) 753-0493.) It's also available in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology administration office in 367 Briggs Hall.

Those who contribute $50 or more to the Bohart Museum Society will receive a calendar with their donation. All proceeds are earmarked for research, education and outreach projects.

Merritt says insects fascinate her. She's amazed at how "alien their biology and morphology are as compared to vertebrates." She's also drawn to their beauty and diversity. 

Professor Kimsey, who holds a doctorate in entomology from UC Davis, directs the world-renowned Bohart Museum, home of eight million specimens, a year-around gift shop and a live "petting zoo"  which includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas. She specializes in bees, wasps and insect diversity.

And collecting sentences--many apparently from sleep- or caffeine-deprived students.

"Normally, locusts are introverted creatures; they do not socialize unless it is for reproduction."