Like a moth to a flame...visitors crowded into the Bohart Museum of Entomology last Saturday night for a "Night at the Museum."

The open house showcased moths, in celebration of National Moth Week, and spotlighted flies, in keeping with the 10th International Dipterology Congress, held July 16-21 in Reno. Bohart officials dedicated the open house to the late Jerry Powell, international moth authority and a former director of the Essig Museum of Entomology, UC Berkeley, who died July 8 at age 90.

A blacklighting display, near the entrance to the Bohart Museum, drew night-flying insects to a white sheet, illuminated by an ultraviolet light.

"There were not many moths," said "Moth Man" John de Benedictus, a research entomologist associate with the Bohart Museum and a former graduate student of Powell's. "Only about 5 or six in all. All but two were the so-called Dusky Raisin Moth, Ephestiodes gilvescentella,which comes as no surprise as it is the most common moth in my yard and probably throughout Davis.  Its caterpillar feeds on a wide variety of plants, including dried fruit and nuts, but it is not a major pest. There were two granite moths, probably Digrammia californiaria, and/or Digrammia muscariata.  The younger kids entertained themselves by pointing out or trying to catch the other insects that flew in, mainly gnats and other small flies; a few beetles, including lady bugs; some aquatic bugs; and a couple of lacewings and earwigs.  An older boy collected some ants that marched to the sheet."

Entomologist Jeff Smith, curator of the Bohart Museum's Lepidoptera collection, and Bohart associate and naturalist Greg Kareoelas, showed visitors many of the moth specimens, including death's-head hawkmoths, featured in the 1991 movie, Silence of the Lambs. In the movie, serial killer, Buffalo Bill (played by Ted Levine), stuffs death's-head hawkmoths inside his victims' throats. FBI trainee Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster) seeks the advice of the cannibalistic psychiatrist, Hannibal Lecter (played by Anthony Hopkins), to solve the mystery. The moths appearing in the movie are Acherontia stropos. The moth markings resemble a human skull. 

The Bohart Museum, directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, including some 500,000 moths or butterflies (60 percent moths and 40 percent butterflies). The museum is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. During the summer, the Bohart Museum is open to the public on Tuesdays from 2 to 5 p.m. For more information, contact the Bohart Museum at bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or (530) 752-0493.

(More images from the Bohart Museum open house, "A Night at the Museum," will appear this week on Bug Squad)

When the Bohart Museum of Entomology of UC Davis hosts a “Night at the Museum” (formerly known as “Moth Night”) it will be dedicated to the late Jerry Powell, longtime director of the Essig Museum Entomology, UC Berkeley, and an international authority on moths. He died July 8 in Berkeley at age 90.

Moths, anything about moths, was the kind of event that Powell loved. He was an associate of the Bohart Museum and a scientific collaborator, identifying scores of insects and attending many of the Leipidopterist Society meetings held there.

The open house, free and family friendly, is set from 7 to 11 p.m., Saturday, July 22 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis, campus.

Plans call for scientists to set up their traditionalblacklighting (ultraviolet or UV) display to attract moths and other night-flying insects. Bohart Research Affiliate John DeBenedictus, a retired UC Davis Staff Research Associate, also known as "The Moth Man," usually heads the blacklighting project. De Benedictus received his master's degree in 1988 from UC Berkeley, studying with Powell. "I spent more time in the field with Jerry than any other grad student," he related. "I was privileged to be Jerry's student and lucky to have become his friend."

Jerry, born May 23, 1933 in Glendale, Calif., received his bachelor's degree in entomology at UC Berkeley in 1955 and his doctorate there in 1961. One of his most-read books, co-authored with Charles Hogue, is California Insects, Volume 44, published in 1980. The second edition, co-authored by Kip Will, Daniel Rubinoff and Powell and covering more than 600 species, was published in October, 2020. The authors point out that worldwide, there are only a million described insects, and that's "more than five times the number of all animals combined." They also note that "estimates of the number remaining to be described and named vary between three million to 30 million or more.”

Powell and Paul Opler  (1938-2023) co-authored Moths of Western America, published in 2009.

In a tribute to Powell on its website, the Essig Museum posted in part:

"In his teen years he was heavily influenced by Charles 'Harbie' Harbison, who ran the Junior Naturalist Program at the San Diego Museum of Natural History, and sparked an interest in Jerry for butterflies and moths. Seeing his potential, Harbie recommended Jerry for the Entomology program at UC Berkeley, where he received his BS in 1955 and his PhD in 1961. While climbing through the ranks of Junior Entomologist (1961-62), Assistant Entomologist (1962-67), Associate Entomologist (1967-73), Entomologist (1973-94), Lecturer in Entomology (1964-69), Associate Professor (1969-73), and Professor (1973-94) at UC Berkeley, Jerry also became Curator (1972-2018) and Director (1993-1999) of the Essig Museum of Entomology (1972-1999) and Project Leader for the California Insect Survey (1963-1999). Although he retired as Director in 1999, Jerry remained a professor of the Graduate School until 2012 and maintained an active research program in Lepidoptera life histories and systematics until 2018, advising many students along the way. (See more on Essig website.)"

"Jerry's rearing program was the most extensive in the history of the study of New World Microlepidoptera," according to the Essig post. "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 gained international recognition when he detected the agricultural pest, the light brown apple moth, Epiphyas postvittana, in a ultralight (UV) trap on July 19, 2006 in his backyard in Berkeley.

"Yet Powell's casual discovery that morning was just the beginning of something more serious: a moth infestation, a quarantine program and an all-out effort by state and federal authorities to stop a nasty creature that they concluded could threaten California's $38 billion agricultural market and--if unchecked--farms across the nation," wrote San Francisco Chronicle reporter Matthew B. Stannard in a June 3, 2007 piece, "Little Moth, Big Problem/Bay Area quarantine tries to halt the spread of ravenous pest."

In an email to colleagues on July 9, Peter Oboyski, executive director of the Essig Museum of Entomology, wrote: "With a heavy heart I am sad to report that professor Jerry Powell passed away this weekend. His contributions to our knowledge of California entomology, microlepidoptera, and insect life histories are inestimable, as is the value of the training he provided to his students. As one of those students, I am eternally grateful for the time, energy, and knowledge Jerry shared with me in the museum and the field."

"A consummate field biologist, Jerry's knowledge and interests were broad, allowing him to read landscapes and discover the most interesting and cryptic of species interactions," Oboyski noted. "This is well documented in over 220 publications, but also in the 60+ years of his field notes and rearing records that we are currently digitizing. He is the collector of over 400 holotypes of various insect orders, described over 170 species and 14 genera of moths, and honored by 41 patronyms. He also published papers on Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Diptera, Dermaptera, and a Nematode. His legacy is impressive and will long be remembered."

Powell described himself as a "MothNut" on his vehicle license plate, and also displayed a sticker, "Larvae on Board."

When the Bohart Museum of Entomology hosts an open house, a sure crowd-pleaser is the global Lepidoptera  collection, which totals some 500,000 specimens--60 percent moths and 40 percent butterflies.

Visitors "can learn about the defensive strategies these insects use for survival, such as camouflage, warning coloration, mimicry of other species," says entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the Lepidoptera collection. "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." 

Both Smith and fellow Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas are usually there to show the specimens and answer questions. The Bohart draws scientists and citizens from all over the world.

At the last open house, Kareofelas and Bohart research associate Britanny Kohler showed specimens to a family from Mexico City: mother Martha Leija, daughter Valentina, 8, and father Mario Preciado.

Valentina is keenly interested in morphos and monarchs, and the excitement on her face told it all.

"Without a doubt, the biggest 'Wow Factor' comes from the huge and brilliant metallic blue morpho butterflies from tropical America," Smith said. 

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.

When are the next open houses?

• Saturday, April 15. The Bohart will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. as part of the campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day. The Bohart theme?  "Bugs, Boom, Bang." 

• Sunday, May 21. "Ants!" will theme this open house. It's set from 1 to 4 p.m.

•  Saturday, July 22. It's the traditional Moth (and Flies) Night. The event takes place in the evening from 8 to 11. 

The open houses are always free and family friendly.

The Bohart Museum, directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, 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 in 1946.

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.  More information is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or Tabatha Yang, education and public outreach coordinator at tabyang@ucdavis.edu

The New Year is less than a week old, and Lepidoptera (aka Lep) species are scarce.

Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, has spotted only one moth and one butterfly since Wednesday, Jan. 5.

Shapiro is the professor who sponsors the annual "Beer for a Butterfly Contest" for scientific research. It works like this: Find the first cabbage white butterfly of the year in Sacramento, Yolo or Solano counties, deliver it live to his department, and if you win, you receive a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. He canceled the contest this year due to rising COVID pandemic concerns.

But he's out looking. 

In a group email on Tuesday, Jan. 4, Shapiro wrote that "about 4:50 p.m. a noctuid moth landed on my living-room window. I could see by the thoracic hair tuft that it was a Plusiine of some kind. I went outside to examine it, but it had not really settled in and it flew off. The light was too dim to have any confidence as to the species, except I know it wasn't biloba. First Lep of 2022! It was about 55F and overcast."

On Wednesday, Jan. 5, "it was much less cloudy than expected," Shapiro noted. "I decided to stay around campus and check out the Vanessa territorial sites. I figured there would be cumulus in the afternoon, and there were--they even congealed into broken stratocumulus for a while. It was warmest between noon and 2 p.m., about 60-61F, with a light southerly wind. I didn't find any Vanessas and gave up by 3. But I did see a butterfly! A fresh-looking Agraulis vanillae at the EC (Experimental Community) Gardens."