- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you attend the Bohart Museum of Entomology's annual Moth Night celebration, affiliated with National Moth Week, you'll meet John De Benedictis, better known as “The Moth Man.”
The indoor-outdoor event, free and open to the public, is set from 7 to 11 p.m., Saturday, July 20 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane.
De Benedictis and his colleagues annually set up a blacklighting display, using UV lighting to attract moths and other night-flying insects. He has blacklighted for 37 years.
His moth collection of some 600 species from the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve and 300 species from his backyard in Davis is housed in the Bohart Museum.
"Jerry Powell (the late UC Berkeley professor and director of the Essig Museum of Entomology) once estimated that there are about 17,000 North American butterflies and moths," De Benedictus commented. "I would not be surprised if it's closer to 20,000."
'Expertise in Moth Identification Is Invaluable'
"John has been great volunteer and supporter of the Bohart Museum," said UC Davis distinguished emerita professor Lynn Kimsey, former director of the Bohart Museum. "His expertise in moth identification is invaluable and now that Jerry Powell is gone, there's really no one else who can identify moths, particularly little brown moths (LBMs) of California."
De Benedictis, a research associate at the Bohart Museum, is closely linked to UC Berkeley, his alma mater, and UC Davis, where he retired. He holds a bachelor's degree in biology, with an emphasis in entomology (1979), and a master's degree in entomology (1998) from UC Berkeley. "Jerry was my major professor and also recruited me as an undergraduate to work in his lab."
A UC Davis retiree since 2001, De Benedictis worked as a staff research assistant from 1995 to 2001 in the laboratory of medical entomologist Tom Scott, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
"I came to Davis in 1989 for a two-month job to key out aphids for Beth Grafton-Cardwell, who at that time was a postdoc of (Professor) Jeffrey Granett. During that time, the rootstock that was being used to protect wine grapevines from grape phylloxera began to fail in Napa and Sonoma counties, so I was able to prolong my stay at Davis through a series of grants to address that problem. While working for Beth and Jeffrey, I got a mini-grant from the former Institute of Ecology to study moths at the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve where I collected from 1989 until the last major fire in 2020."
“I began a similar inventory of the species in my backyard after I purchased my home in 1998," De Benedictis said. "It continues to this day, and a synoptic collection of the 300 or so species that I've collected in my yard is housed alongside the Cold Canyon collection in the Bohart Museum.” Grace Horne of the lab of urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, Department of Entomology and Nematology, is analyzing the data from these studies as part of her doctoral research.
When Children Were 'Free-Range'
John traces his interest in entomology to his childhood. Born in Oakland in 1945, the second of six children on Aldo and Eleanor De Benedictis, he grew up in Berkeley.
“I am grateful that I had parents who not merely tolerated but encouraged our activities and to have grown up in an era when chickens were confined and children were free-range rather than the reverse as is the case today.”
“I attended Berkeley public schools and later UC Berkeley, except for my last year of junior high school which was in Mt. Vernon, N. Y., while my dad was temporarily transferred,” De Benedictis said. “My older brother Paul was keenly interested in natural history, which switched from subject to subject whenever a new Golden Nature Guide came out. We spent much of our free time poking around in the East Bay Regional Parks and in Strawberry Canyon behind Berkeley's Central Campus.” (Paul went on to obtain a doctorate in ecology in Michigan.)
While in the fourth grade, John began “collecting butterflies, a few flashy moths, and other insects with my older brother and a couple of classmates. A highlight of my youth was the return trip from New York by car where we chased butterflies that we never saw in New York or in California as often as we could complain long and loud enough to make my dad stop the station wagon.”
When John was attending junior high in the late 1950s, he found a Polyphemus moth under a streetlight on the UC Berkeley campus. “It was a highly prized find. At UC Berkeley, we collected on spring field trips with the systematics professors and students and we---whoever was participating--ran lights on during our spruce budworm field trips. I ran a sheet a few times on San Bruno Mountain on my own and was surprised to find that very few of the moths that I had reared from caterpillars flew to my light. While in grad school and afterwards, I went on a few of Jerry Powell's trips to the California Channel Islands to assist him in his inventory of the islands' Lepidoptera species. There we ran lights and set out light traps when it wasn't too cold and windy.”
Species Named for Him
De Benedictis recalled that he and Dave Wagner, now a professor at the University of Connecticut, started graduate studies with Powell at UC Berkeley at the same time. "Jerry had a long-term project studying larval host plants of caterpillars, and Dave and I were among the succession of students who took care of his larval rearing lots on the Berkeley campus. Dave went on to become the current authority on the caterpillars of large moths. I was more interested in smaller moths and prolonged my graduate years by collecting caterpillars on San Bruno Mountain by the San Francisco Airport.” There De Benedictis discovered a handful of new species, one of which Powell named Gnorimoschema debenedictisi.
“The Mid-Winter Gathering is a legacy of Jerry Powell,” said De Benedictus, who spent more time in the field with Powell than any other UC Berkeley graduate student. "I was privileged to be Jerry's student and lucky to have him become my friend."I
In a tribute to Powell, the Essig Museum wrote: "Jerry's rearing program was the most extensive in the history of the study of New World Microlepidoptera. For over 50 years he and his students processed more than 15,000 collections of larval or live adult Lepidoptera. Resulting data encompass more than 1,000 species of moths, through rearing either field-collected larvae or those emerging from eggs deposited by females in confinement. This total includes more than 60% of an estimated 1,500 species of Microlepidoptera occurring in California."
Powell and Paul Opler, two Lepidoptera legends, co-authored Moths of Western North America.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Have you ever seen a plume moth?
Or has a plume moth ever seen you?
We spotted a pterophorid plume moth (family Pterophoridae) yesterday on our back door in Vacaville, Calif. The t-shaped moth stayed in the same spot the entire day, from dawn to dusk, even when we entered and exited the door multiple times.
Its shape is what makes it unusual. Butterfly expert Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, told us awhile back that the "T-square shape is classic."
In some respects, the pterophorid plume moth is fit to a "T."
At rest, the plume moth holds its slender wings at right angles to body, giving it a T-shaped profile.
In his book, California Insects, UC Berkeley entomologist Jerry Powell (now emeritus) explains why they're called plume moths..."because the forewings are deeply notched and the hindwings are divided into three linear parts, each with long scale fringes. When perched, the insects roll the forewings around the folded hindwing plumes, resulting in peculiar sticklike or craneflylike appearance, unlike any other moth."
Most are nocturnal and are attracted to lights, Powell adds. (Like porch lights!)
Its ancestors lived millions of years ago. Wikipedia tells us that a fossil species from the extant genus Merrifieldia originates from the Oligocene of France. The Oligocene, a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period, occurred 33.9 million to 23 million years ago. Today some 160 species of plume moths live in North America.
So why did the plume moth visit us? Well, it's a common moth. The adults feed on nectar and pollen (plenty of that in our pollinator garden) and caterpillars of some of the species chew the leaves of garden plants, including geraniums and snapdragons (we have both).
We also have artichokes, and the larvae of one species, the artichoke plume moth, can be a pest when the vegetable is grown as a perennial, according to the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program website.
One thing is for sure: once you see the plume moth, you'll always recognize it.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ask them a question about insects and entomologists, and odds are, they'll come up with the correct answer.
And quickly.
They've already won three national championships and are gearing up for a fourth.
"They" are members of the UC Linnaean Games Team (UC Berkeley and UC Davis graduate students) and they're looking forward to competing in the annual Linnaean Games at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting, set Nov. 17-20 in St. Louis.
The Linnaean Games, launched in 1983, are lively question-and-answer, college bowl-style competitions on entomological facts and played by winners of the ESA branch competitions. The teams score points by correctly answering random questions.
This year's UC team, captained by Ralph Washington Jr., a UC Berkeley public policy graduate student who received his bachelor's degree in entomology at UC Davis, includes five UC Davis doctoral students in entomology: Brendon Boudinot, Zachary Griebenow and Jill Oberski, all of the Phil Ward lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology; and alternates Miles Dakin of the Christian Nansen lab and Hanna Kahl of the Jay Rosenheim lab.
Washington has captained all three winning teams, and Boudinot has helped anchor all of them.
The record:
- 2018: UC won the national championship (link to news story) in Vancouver, B.C., defeating Texas A&M Graduates, with Washington captaining the team and joined by Boudinot, Oberski and Griebenow, and Emily Bick (who received her doctorate this year) of the Christian Nansen lab. (No video of the championship round)
- 2017: The UC team did not compete. (Texas A&M won the national championship; see championship round on YouTube)
- 2016: UC won the national and international championships at the University of Florida, at the joint and international meeting of ESA and the International Congress of Entomology (ICE), defeating the University of Georgia. (See championship round on YouTube)
- 2015: UC won the national championship at the games held in Minneapolis, Minn., defeating the University of Florida. (See championship round on YouTube)
All branches of ESA conduct a Linnaean Games competition, with each branch sending the winner and the second-place winner to the nationals. The UC team has won the Pacific Branch (PBESA) competition multiple times. PBESA encompasses 11 Western U.S. states, plus several U.S. territories and parts of Canada and Mexico.
Some of the previous questions asked of the UC team during the championship rounds:
Toss-Up Question: What is the smallest insect that is not a parasite or parasitoid?
Answer: Beetles in the family Ptiliidae.
Bonus Question:Some species of mosquitoes lay eggs that can undergo diapause or aestivation. Give at least three cues that trigger the aquatic eggs to hatch.
Answer: Temperature, immersion in water, concentration of ions or dissolved solutes.
Toss-Up Question: Chikungunya is an emerging vector-borne disease in the Americas. Chikungunya is derived from the African Language Makonde. What means Chikungunya in Makonde?
Answer: Bending up.
Answer: Trichoptera
Toss-Up Question: Certain Chrysomelid larvae carry their feces as a defensive shield. To what subfamily do these beetles belong?
Answer: Cassidinae.
Bonus Question: The first lepidopteran sex pheromone identified was bombykol. What was the first dipteran sex pheromone identified? Give the trade or chemical name.
Answer: Muscalure, Z-9-Tricosene. It is also one of the chemicals released by bees during the waggle dance.
Toss-Up Question: What famous recessive gene was the first sex-linked mutation demonstrated in Drosophila by T.H. Morgan?
Answer: White
Bonus Question: Cecidomyiidae are known as the gall flies. What is unique about the species Mayetiola destructor, and what is its common name?
Answer: Mayetiola destructor is the Hessian Fly, a tremendous pest of wheat. It does not form galls.
Answer: The Endangered Species Act
Toss-Up Question: In what insect order would you find hemelytra?
Answer: The order Hemiptera.
Toss-Up Question: The subimago stage is characteristic of what insect order?
Answer: The order Ephemeroptera
Bonus Question: A 2006 Science article by Glenner et al. on the origin of insects summarized evidence that Hexapods are nothing more than land-dwelling crustaceans, which is to say that the former group Crustacea is paraphyletic with respect to the Hexapoda. What hierarchical name has been used to refer to this clade?
Answer: Pancrustacea
Toss-Up Question: What are the three primary conditions that define eusociality?
Answer: Cooperative brood care, overlapping generations, and reproductive division of labor
In addition to serving on the Linnaean Games Team, Boudinot will be honored as the PBESA recipient of the John Henry Comstock Award, the top graduate student award. PBESA is one of six branches of ESA.
Founded in 1889, ESA is the world's largest organization serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and individuals in related disciplines. It is comprised of more than 7000 members, who are affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government. Members are researchers, teachers, extension service personnel, administrators, marketing representatives, research technicians, consultants, students, pest management professionals, and hobbyists.
Resources:
Origin of Linnaean Games (Richard Levine in American Entomologist)
Previous Winners (Entomological Society of America)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
What was that!
If you grow Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia) in your pollinator garden, you've probably noticed the fast-flying longhorned male bees being totally territorial.
Their job is to target whatever's on the Tithonia. It doesn't matter if it's a bumble bee, a honey bee, or a butterfly--it's fair game.
As the late Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), a global expert on bees and a distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, used to say about the male longhorned bees, Melissodes agilis: "They're trying to save the flowers for their own species, per chance to mate with them."
Watching the territorial behavior is jaw-dropping, but imagine if you're a butterfly trying to sip a little nectar.
"Oh no! What was that heading straight at me?"
"Horrors! Here he comes again! Can't a pollinator get a little peace around here?"
The longhorned bee, Melissodes agilis, is just one of the more than 1600 species of bees found in California. If you want to learn more about them, be sure to read California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday, 2014), co-authored by scientists from UC Berkeley and UC Davis.
"California Bees and Blooms (co-authored by Gordon Frankie, Robbin Thorp, Barbara Ertter and Rollin Coville) holds a magnifying glass up to the twenty-two most common genera (and six species of cuckoo bees), describing each one's distinctive behaviors, social structures, flight season, preferred flowers, and enemies," according to Heyday.
That it does. And if you try to stop the action with your camera, it helps to set the shutter speed at 1/3000 to 1/4000 of a second. (The two images of the bee and painted lady butterfly captured with a Nikon D500 camera, mounted with a 70-180 mm macro zoom lens, with the aperture set at 5.6 and ISO at 800. Image of the bee and monarch taken with a Nikon D800 mounted with a 105mm lens, and with similar settings.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
That includes pollinator habitat.
In their paper, “Techno-Ecological Synergies of Solar Energy for Global Sustainability,” published today (July 9), the researchers propose a “techno–ecological synergy (TES), a framework for engineering mutually beneficial relationships between technological and ecological systems, as an approach to augment the sustainability of solar energy across a diverse suite of recipient environments, including land, food, water, and built-up systems.”
They provided “a conceptual model and framework to describe 16 TES of solar energy and characterize 20 potential techno–ecological synergistic outcomes of their use.”
The paper offers what is considered the most complete list yet of the advantages of solar energy. "The study also marks the launch of a partnership between the Center for Biological Diversity and UC Davis to advance a Wild Energy future, which emphasizes the potential of solar energy systems to benefit not only humans, but the entire planet," according to a UC Davis news release.
Despite solar energy's growing penetration in the global marketplace, “rarely discussed is an expansion of solar energy engineering principles beyond process and enterprise to account for both economic and ecological systems, including ecosystem goods and services,” wrote lead author Rebecca Hernandez of the UC Davis Department of Land, Air and Water Resources and the Wild Energy Initiative of the John Muir Institute of the Environment, UC Davis. She considers the first step in creating a wild-energy future is "understanding the true value of solar."
The researchers defined TES “as a systems-based approach to sustainable development emphasizing synergistic outcomes across technological and ecological boundaries…solar energy combined with TES may prove a promising solution for avoiding unintended consequences of a rapid renewable energy transition on nature by mitigating global change-type problems.”
Co-author and entomologist Leslie Saul-Gershenz, associate director of research for the Wild Energy Initiative, John Muir Institute of the Environment, said it is imperative to protect our ecological system, which includes pollinators and their required resources. Among them: nest sites, and pollen and nectar resources.
“Native pollinators face global pressure from many sources of habitat alteration, pesticide use, invasive non-native plants, and climate change,” said Saul-Gershenz, who received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis. “We are proposing land sparing priorities in undisturbed ecosystems, such as arid lands in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts, which sustain some of the highest native pollinator species diversity in the United States. We add the valuation of these pollinators as essential resources into the calculation when selecting sites to deliver renewable energy goals to achieve true tech-ecological synergy and global sustainability.”
Solar cells, called photovoltaic (PV) solar energy, convert sunlight directly into electricity. For example, in Minnesota and Vermont, land adjacent to croplands is developed with PV solar energy, the authors noted. The low-growing flowering plants for native and managed pollinators help increase agricultural yields, reduce management (that is, mowing) costs, and confer the opportunity to produce honey and other honey-based commodities.
The researchers concluded that “achieving a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources on planet Earth to support human activities, in a manner benign to Earth's life support systems, is arguably the grandest challenge facing civilization today. The consequences of climate and other types of global environmental change are a cautionary flag against the extrapolation of past energy decisions.”
Hernandez initiated the research and led the conceptual design and writing of the manuscript All authors contributed to further content development and drafting of the manuscript. The team also included researchers from UC Berkeley, UC Riverside and UC San Diego, as well as scientists from Lancaster University in the United Kingdom; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, Sacramento; Center for Biological Services, Tucson, Ariz.; Université de Thiès, Senegal; Centers for Pollinators in Energy, Fresh Energy, St. Paul, Minn.; National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Co.; and Renewable Energy and Environmental Finance Group, Wells Fargo, San Francisco.
Look for more research on solar energy!
"Solar energy is the fastest-growing source of power worldwide," according to the UC Davis news release. "In 2019, solar is expected to provide more than 30 percent of all new U.S. electric capacity. According to the International Energy Agency, solar energy could become the largest electricity source by 2050. Solar has many advantages beyond providing power, particularly when built to maximize social, technological and environmental benefits."