- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Raymond Ryckman, emeritus professor of biochemistry and microbiology at Loma Linda University, San Bernardino County, gifted his collection, spanning more than half a century, to the Bohart Museum's growing global collection of nearly eight million specimens.
His donation includes 18 species of kissing bugs as well as 11 species of tsetse fly and other parasitic insects, said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis.
“His collection is a tremendous addition to the Bohart Museum and we are honored that he thought of us to take care of it,” she said.
Kissing bugs, which feed on blood and transmit Chagas disease, are so named “because they often bite the thin skin around the lips and eyes of sleeping persons,” Kimsey said. In California, they're commonly found in the nests of wood rats and pack rats and in brush and woodpiles near homes. The insects are nocturnal. They invade residences, hiding in cracks and crevices by day and feeding on sleeping people at night.
Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is an inflammatory, infectious disease caused by the parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, found in the feces of the kissing bugs, or triatomine (reduviid) bugs. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the disease is found only in the Americas (mainly, in rural areas of Latin America where poverty is widespread).
Ryckman reared some of the parasitic insects from rotting cacti in Arizona and Mexico that comprised part of his thesis research. He authored more than 100 research papers and books, including a database on Chagas disease and its kissing bug vectors, assembling more than 23,000 references on the subject, Kimsey noted.
Ryckman also did research for Operation Whitecoat, operated by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command at Fort Detrick, Maryland. He developed protocols for protecting troops and civilians from the disease. In 2007, he received a special Distinguished Achievement Award in 2007 from the Society of Vector Ecology. He has been a member of the Entomological Society of America since 1951.
Kimsey said kissing bugs are one of the most notorious insects belonging to the family Reduviidae. They feed exclusively on the blood of birds and mammals and “typically live in their hosts' nests,” she said.
Most of the species occur only in the Americas; and 12 are found in the United States. The most common species in California is Triatoma protracta, a large black or dark brown insect that occurs in the state's mountain ranges and in desert washes, where they live in rodent nests, Kimsey said. The insect is also known as the Western conenose, vinchuca, and Mexican bedbug.
“We tend to think of insect parasites like bedbugs and lice as being pretty small. However, kissing bugs are large, with the adults averaging about half-an-inch in length. They have a long narrow head and the mouthparts are modified into a long, apically pointed tube. At rest, this tube is folded up under the body.”
“The kissing bug's pharynx can generate suction pressures of 3-6 atmospheres. This makes the blood rush into the pharynx at the rate of 4 millimeters per second. You have to wonder what keeps the bug from exploding. However, they don't explode because a series of valves in their digestive track regulates the flow of blood. Some species excrete excess blood and digested materials during feeding.” They can create acute allergic reactions in humans. “Extreme allergic reactions occur more frequently from kissing bug bites than the bites of any other North American insects.”
Kimsey also pointed out that removing all brush and piles of debris away from homes in California is crucial for both fire protection and the elimination of rat nests.
“Pack rat nests are home to a diversity of insects and spiders besides kissing bugs,” she added. While doing research in the Algodones Dunes in Imperial County, “we found in a single pack rat's nest in a wash on the east side of dunes, Triatoma kissing bugs, black widow spiders, fleas, desert recluse spider and a diversity of beetles. I would not want to be a pack rat!”
Her comments appear in the summer 2014 edition of the Bohart newsletter.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
“Parasitoid Palooza” may be the first public celebration dedicated to parasitoids, said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis, and Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. “Parasitoids are animals that feed internally or externally on a host to complete their development to an adult, ultimately killing it,” Kimsey said. “These insects are important biological control agents. We use them as biological control agents because they kill the host, sometimes as an egg or a larva.”
Most of the open houses are from 1 to 4 p.m., except for an evening event, “Moth Night” on Saturday, July 18, and two events--Biodiversity Museum Day on Sunday, Feb. 8 and UC Davis Picnic Day on Saturday, April 18--which have extended hours.
The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, off LaRue Road, houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. The museum is open to the public four days a week, Monday through Thursday, but it sponsors special weekend open houses as well.
The schedule:
- Saturday, Sept. 27: “How to Be an Entomologist,” 1 to 4 p.m.
- Sunday, Nov. 23: “Insect Myths,” 1 to 4 p.m.
- Saturday, Dec. 20: “Insects and Art,” 1 to 4 p.m.
- Sunday, Jan. 11: “Parasitoid Palooza,” 1 to 4 p.m.
- Sunday, Feb. 8: “Biodiversity Museum Day,” noon to 4 p.m.
- Saturday, March 14: “Pollination Nation,” 1 to 4 p.m.
- Saturday, April 18: UC Davis Picnic Day, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Sunday, May 17: “Name That Bug! How About Bob?” 1 to 4 p.m.
- Saturday, July 18: “Moth Night,” 8 to 11 p.m.
The Bohart Museum is 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. The Bohart Museum's regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. The insect museum is closed to the public on Fridays and on major holidays. Admission is free.
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 (on location and online) includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.
Those interested in joining the Bohart Museum Society to support the educational mission can do so by signing up here. Benefits include:
- a subscription to the Bohart Museum Society quarterly newsletter
- invitation only special events and programs
- select member discounts on gift shop merchandise
- members-only Halloween open house
- access to the collections, and free information and identification services from staff
- use of the museum library of entomological books and periodicals
Through funds from the Bohart Society, the museum supports a visiting scientist program, high school student internships and associates program.
For those interested in naming an insect after themselves or for a loved one, the museum offers a BioLegacy program established to support species discovery and naming, research and teaching activities of the museum through sponsorships.
More information is available from Tabatha Yang at tabyang@ucdavis.edu or by telephoning (530) 752-0492. The website is at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
DAVIS--Like to learn how to make mead?
Six renowned instructors—all who have won awards in national or international competitions--will conduct a two-day workshop, sponsored by the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, on "Introduction to Mead Making." The event is set Friday and Saturday, Nov. 14-15 at the Robert Mandavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, UC Davis campus.
Registration opened Aug. 1 and the workshop is expected to fill rapidly, said Amina Harris, director of the Honey and Pollination Center, which is affiliated with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Mead is an ancient alcoholic beverage made with the key ingredient, honey.
The instructors, in addition to Harris, will include:
- Petar Bakulic, president of the Mozer Cup International Mead Competition
- Chik Brenneman, winemaker and manager of LEED Platinum Teaching and Research Wintery, Department of Viticulture and Enology, Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science
- Michael Fairbrother, owner of the Moonlight Meadery, Londonderry, N.H.
- Mike Faul, owner, Rabbit's Foot Meadery, Sunnyvale
- Ken Schramm, author of “The Compleat Meadmaker” and owner of Schramm's Mead, Ferndale, Mich.
Early registration is $450. After Sept. 15, the fee is $525. The program fees include all coursework and materials, light breakfast, lunch, Friday evening reception, and honey and mead tastings. Participants can register online at
http://honey.ucdavis.edu/mead
The center drew a capacity crowd at its first-ever Mead Makers Short Course in February 2014.
For more information, see http://honey.ucdavis.edu/mead or contact Amina Harris at aharris@ucdavis.edu
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The next LASER-UC Davis event, or Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous, is set for Thursday night, Aug. 7 in Room 3001 of the Plant and Environmental Sciences building, UC Davis campus. Sponsored by the UC Davis Art Science Fusion Program, it will begin with socializing and networking from 6:30 to 7 p.m., and then followed by four presentations, announced coordinator/moderator Anna Davidson, an instructor for the UC Davis Art Science Fusion Program. The event is free and open to the public.
The program:
7 to 7:25:
Eve Warnock and Kate Harrington, “We Are HERD: Exploring Animal and Human Herding Behavior Through Research, Scenario and Performance”
7:25-7:50:
Frank Pietronigro, “The Expansion of the Arts, Humanities and Culture in Space Exploration
7:50-8:10
Break. (During the break anyone in the audience currently working within the intersections of art and science will have 30 seconds to share their work).
8:10-8:35
Robert Buelteman, “Energetic Photogrammetry: A History of Photographic Technology”
8:35-9 p.m.
Robert Edgar. “Animating the Memory Theatre”
9 to 9:30: Discussion
About the presentations:
Eve Warnock and Kate Harrington
Eve Warnock is a multimedia artist who melds ancient techniques of art-making with modern technologies. She is a costume and set designer as well as a director for live performances and films. She received her bachelor of arts degree in arts and humanities from The Ohio State University, and a master of fine arts from UC Santa Cruz's Digital Arts and New Media program. Her work explores the boundaries of human and animal relationships, dissecting primal instincts as a way to reconnect humans with each other and to the animal kingdom. Her work has been shown all over the United States in diverse venues, from the street to the museum, from the gallery to the guerrilla.
Frank Pietronigro
Frank Pietronigro, an interdisciplinary artist, will provide a general overview of some of the groups, individuals and institutions involved in expanding the presence of the arts, humanities, and culture within the context of human space exploration while emphasizing the change of acronym from STEM education to STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Music and Mathemetics). He will discuss his role as director of the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium and his current project: Space Wishes.
Pietronigro has flown twice under reduced gravity conditions, in 1998 and 2006, when he created multiple works using the media of painting, drawing, dance including microgravity drawings while blind folded, microgravity mobiles, kinetic text and graffitti based zero-gravity video works, drift paintings and dances in reduced gravity conditions.
Robert Buelteman
Robert Buelteman says that “As the medium evolves so must the artist." He creates unique energetic photograms inspired by Japanese ink-brush paintings and improvisational jazz. This includes high-voltage electricity and hand-delivered fiber optic light.
His journey as a photographic artist began in 1973 and has continued through multiple residencies including the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, the Santa Fe Institute, and Stanford University. During that time he worked in black and white landscape photography, ran a successful commercial studio in San Francisco's south-of-Market area, and now, using high-energy electrical discharges and fiber-optically delivered light, makes what he calls “Energetic Photograms.”
His art has received accolades from institutions as diverse as the U.S. Congress, the Commonwealth Club of California, Committee for Green Foothills, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. In recent years this art has been the subject of essays in 23 languages on six continents around the globe, and can be found in public and private collections worldwide, including the Yale University Art Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers, Bank of America, Adobe Systems, Stanford University, Xerox, and Nikon.
Robert Edgar
In his abstract, Robert Edgar, a senior instructional designer at Stanford University, says: "I introduce early memory theatre strategies, my own work with computers and memory theaters, and then my current work with my Simultaneous Opposites engine. The history of memory theaters provides analogs for the process of art itself. I'll show how I've worked through them to create a personal aesthetic.”
Edgar creates and employs software engines to examine mediated artifacts forged at his zone of proximal development. Robert's computer-based art engines include MERGEEMERGE (2013), Simultaneous Opposites (2008 – present), The Duchamp Examinations (2006), Memory Theatre Two (2003), Sand, or How Computers Imagine Truth in Cinema (1994), Living Cinema (1988), Memory Theatre One (1985), and Intersticies (1972). Robert holds an MFA from Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. He grew up in Cocoa Beach, Fla., during the birth of the NASA Space Program (1958-1970).
The UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program was founded by entomologist/artist Diane Ullman of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and self-described "rock artist" Donna Billick.
The Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous (LASER) is a series of lectures and presentations on art, science and technology. Founded in 2008 by LASER Chair Piero Scaruffi on behalf of Leonardo/ISAST, LASERs are now presented at a number of venues: University of San Francisco, Stanford University, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz and a New York Studio.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You probably will when you use the UC Davis Honey and Pollinator Center's newly published Honey Flavor Wheel.
“This gives a huge lexicon to the tastes and aromas we find when tasting honey,” said Amina Harris, director of the Honey and Pollinator Center, affiliated with the Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science and the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
The Honey Flavor Wheel production involved six months of research and development. “We brought together a group of 20 people--trained tasters, beekeepers and food enthusiasts--who worked together with a sensory scientist to come up with almost 100 descriptors,” Harris said. “This wheel will prove invaluable to those who love honey and want to celebrate its nuances.”
“I have always been astonished by the range of flavors in honey,” Harris said. “And its aromas, too. Developing the wheel has been an astonishing learning experience at all levels. I now truly pay attention as I taste many different kinds of foods. I notice flavors from beginning to end.
“I had one wonderful surprise during the tasting series. The sensory scientist we worked with, Sue Langstaff, had been to New Zealand and brought back several honeys. One was a wild flower called Viper's Bugloss. What an amazing aroma! Imagine sitting in a garden. The sun has just set. And the heady aromas of jasmine and orange blossom together crowd the air. This is the scent of Viper's Bugloss. An astonishing honey. Now I want more!”
Harris' favorite honey? Sweet clover. And that's not to be confused with clover. “Sweet clover is a tall, five-foot wildflower that grows in profusion in Montana, the Dakotas and elsewhere in the high plains of the United States,” Harris said. “It is light in color, spicy with a wonderful cinnamon hit!
“When we tasted it, one of our analytical panel members said: 'There is really only one word for this. Yum!'
"And that is how I feel, too!” Harris said.
There's even an “animal” category” where you can opine that your sample of honey reminds you of a barnyard.
Retired Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who has coordinated and conducted the annual honey tasting at the UC Davis Picnic Day for 38 years, remembers tasting buckwheat honey in Oregon that reminded him of “goat.”
“Maybe the honey bees drank goat pee,” he said, smiling. “Actually, the environmental conditions where the plants are growing can have quite an effect on the odors and flavors of some honeys, while others just seem to be the same everywhere. The ‘goat' honey that I tasted was buckwheat. In many cases, buckwheat honey seems more similar to blackstrap molasses than anything else. It is normally quite robust, but can be mild. In some cases it has been described as having a ‘barnyard' odor and flavor--goat? A search of websites suggests that the mild-tasting samples can become more pungent, with off-flavors developing if it's left sitting around for some time or if it's been heated.”
The back of the Honey Flavor Wheel relates how to taste honey and shares four honey profiles (Florida tupelo, California orange blossom, Northwest blackberry and Midwestern clover) “so the consumer can get an idea of how to use this innovative product,” Harris said.
The Honey Flavor Wheel, measuring 8.25 inches, sells for $10 each, with all proceeds supporting bee health research at UC Davis. The product is available at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science and soon will be available online, at the UC Davis Campus bookstore and at the downtown Davis Campus Bookstore.