- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Saturday, May 28, 1 to 4 p,m.
Open house, "Bugs in Ag: What Is Eating Our Crops and What Is Eating Them?"
Cooperative Extension specialist and agricultural entomologist Ian Grettenberger of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty will explore the relationships between insects and agriculture. His areas of expertise include field crops; vegetable crops; insects, mites and other arthropods affecting plants; biological control of pests affecting plants; and beneficial insects. Grettenberger, who joined the UC Davis faculty in January 2019, targets a wide variety of pests, including western spotted and striped cucumber, beetles, armyworms, bagrada bugs, alfalfa weevils, aphids, and thrips.
Saturday June 25, 1 to 4 p.m.
Open house, "Eight-Legged Encounters"
This event is all about arachnids featuring scientists from across the country. It is in collaboration with the American Arachnological Society's 2022 meeting, scheduled June 26-30 on the UC Davis campus. The annual meeting will be hosted by two UC Davis arachnologists: Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and associate dean, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and Joel Ledford, assistant professor of teaching, Department of Plant Biology, College of Biological Sciences.
Public event to be held in California Hall for arachnid novices and experts alike. This is in collaboration with the American Arachnological Society's meeting at UC Davis.
Saturday, July 16, 1 to 4 p.m.
"Celebrating 50 Years of the Dogface Butterfly:California's State Insect"
Scientists and the public will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the California State Legislature' designation of the dogface butterfly as the state insect.
Folsom Lake College professor and Bohart scientist Fran Keller, and Bohart associate Greg Karofelas, a volunteer docent for the Placer Land Trust's dogface butterfly tours, will on hand to discuss the butterfly. The California dogface butterfly, Zerene eurydice, is found only in California. It thrives in the 40-acre Shutamul Bear River Preserve near Auburn, Placer County. The preserve, part of the Placer Land Trust, is closed to the public except for specially arranged tours.
Keller is the author of 35-page children's book, The Story of the Dogface Butterfly, with photos by Keller and Kareofelas, and illustrations by former UC Davis student Laine Bauer. Kareofelas' images include the life cycle of the dogface butterfly that he reared. Keller holds a doctorate in entomology from UC Davis, where she studied with major professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart and UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology.
Kareofelas and Keller also teamed to create a dogface butterfly poster of the male and female. Both the book and the poster are available online from the the Bohart Museum of Entomology gift shop.
California legislators adopted the dogface butterfly as the official state insect on July 28, 1972. But as early as 1929, entomologists had already singled it out as their choice for state insect. Their suggestion appears in the California Blue Book, published by the State Legislature in 1929. (Read more on how the butterfly became the state insect under the Ronald Reagan administration.)
The dogface butterfly is so named because the wings of the male appear to be a silhouette of a poodle. It is also known as "the flying pansy."
Bohart Museum. The Bohart Museum is the home of a worldwide collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a gift shop and a live "petting zoo," comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas.
Bohart Museum Contact information:
https://bohart.ucdavis.edu/
(530) 752-0493
bmuseum@ucdavis.edu
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Wilson, recognized as one of the world's most influential scientists, was known as “The Ant Man,” "The Father of Sociobiology," "The Father of Diversity" and “The Modern-Day Darwin," for his pioneering and trailblazing work that drew global admiration and won scores of scientific awards.
But among his peers, colleagues and mentees, he was known as "Ed."
Wilson's work, On Human Nature, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979. He won a second Pulitzer in 1991 with The Ants, co-authored with colleague Bert Hölldobler. In 1990, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded Wilson the Crafoord Prize in biosciences, the highest scientific award in the field. In 1996, Time magazine named him one of America's 25 most influential people. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter awarded him the National Medal of Science for his contributions toward the advancement of knowledge in biology.
Wilson, according to reports, always considered himself an Alabaman who went to Harvard, rather than a Harvard professor born in Alabama. Born June 10, 1929 in Birmingham, Ed graduated from the University of Alabama in 1949 with two degrees in biology, and received his doctorate in biology from Harvard in 1955. He joined the Harvard faculty in 1956. Although officially retiring in 1996, he remained active as an emeritus professor and honorary curator until his death.
Some tributes from UC Davis faculty and students:
“E. O. Wilson was a towering figure in the study of social insects, in evolutionary biology, and in conservation biology,” said fellow ant specialist and professor Phil Ward of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology who organized the 2007 E.O. Wilson Festschrift (a collection of writings published in honor of a scholar). “He made important contributions in all of these areas, but his specialty was the study of ants, those ‘little creatures that run the world.' Wilson's book, The Insect Societies (1971), introduced its readers to the fascinating world of ants and other social insects, using language that was both engaging and accessible, yet highly informative.”
“This was followed two decades later by the equally magisterial The Ants, co-authored with Bert Hölldobler,” Ward noted. “These landmark contributions inspired many budding biologists, myself included, to devote ourselves to the study of ants and other social organisms. Equally important, Wilson argued passionately and compellingly for the conservation of biological diversity in a dwindling natural world. He once said that 'destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.' Let us honor his legacy by heeding this message!”
UC Davis doctoral alumnus Brendon Boudinot of the Phil Ward lab and now a postdoctoral researcher in Germany at the Institute of Zoology and Evolutionary Research, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, says the ant world is reeling with Wilson's passing. “A big chunk of my dissertation was dedicated to testing his hypotheses for the origin and early evolution of ants!”
Boudinot met Wilson when he was visiting the Ant Room at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology in 2013. “The work I was doing was the foundation for my studies on ant males, and I was near the end of the trip, at one of the many microscopes by the window facing the yard,” he said. “Ed surprised me by coming right up to my shoulder at the scope; he asked me what I was working on. I am a bit abashed to say that I couldn't say anything because my mind went blank! Stef Cover, the pins-and-points curator told Ed what I was doing, and for the life of me I will always remember what Wilson said. He was happy that I chose to work on male ants, when this sex has been actively ignored by researchers over the past centuries, and that he himself was more apt to squash one at a light trap than to collect one. I hope that my keys and diagnoses have helped people appreciate male ants.”
“I am so thankful that I met him,” Boudinot said, “and that I was able to work with so many people in his sphere. The ant world is reeling, as he was a gentle giant of myrmecology, and of course biology writ large.”
Doctoral candidate Jill Oberski of the Phil Ward lab met “The Ant Man” in 2019. “I got to meet E. O. Wilson when I traveled to the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology in 2019. In addition to myself, there were several other researchers visiting the “Ant Room,” which houses a huge number of type specimens.”
“He asked me about my research on Dorymyrmex taxonomy and biogeography, although as a second-year PhD student I didn't have much to report yet. He was genuinely interested in my work and excited that I was working to resolve Dorymyrmex--which has always been a taxonomic headache. He also told me he recalled watching ants forming cone-shaped nests as a child in Alabama, which could only have been Dorymyrmex. He was exceedingly kind and encouraging.
“Finally, the Ant Room staff and visitors ate lunch together in Ed's office—lobster sandwiches, diet Dr. Pepper, and coffee, as is customary.”
Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, remembers working near his office when she served as a visiting professor/lecturer (1987 to 1989) at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, before joining the UC Davis faculty in 1989.
“His office was just down the hall from mine when I taught at Harvard. Here he was, one of the most famous biologists of his generation and I would see him sit down on the sidewalk to show a little kid the ants there. Also, saw him in the sitting on a bench Burlington Mall while his wife shopped, writing on a yellow pad of paper. Totally focused on what he was writing with shopping pandemonium all around. He was brilliant, humble and engaging.”
UC Davis doctoral alumnus Fran Keller, a professor at Folsom Lake College, and a research scientist at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, helped honor his work at a special symposium hosted at the 2005 Entomological Society of America meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
"Our department of entomology helped fund my trip to Harvard,” she recalled, “and he agreed to meet me over the course of two days in May 2005. The ESA symposium took place in mid-December. I recorded our interview on a cassette tape,” she said, adding she hopes to publish it in a journal.
Wilson responded: “Everyone has an animal that reaches them or that they connect with at some level, even though you were born an entomologist, perhaps yours is the rhino.”
“After my interview with Ed, I bought the book in the MCZ, The Rarest of the Rare: Stories Behind the Treasues at the Harvard Museum of Natural History. In that book, it highlights the extinct and rare species held in the MCZ collections. One of those specimens is the last Xerces butterfly, which was caught by Harry Lange (UC Davis emeritus professor of entomology). Harry's quote in that book, ‘I didn't know it was the last one, I thought there would be more' and then my time eating lunch and then wandering the MCZ collection and chatting with Ed inspired me to create the Xerces t-shirt for the Bohart Museum of Entomology.”
One of Keller's mentors, Tom Schoener, studied with Wilson. “I worked on plant ecology and island biogeography for my undergrad research (Sacramento City College)," she said, "and continued that for awhile in grad school (UC Davis). Ed Wilson was one of the founders of island biogeography.”
As a undergraduate at Sacramento City College, Keller was part of a field trip to hear Wilson speak at his 2002 book tour on The Future of Life.
UC Davis doctoral alumnus Alex Wild, an evolutionary biologist, science photographer and curator of entomology at the University of Texas, Austin, wrote this on his Twitter account, @Myrmecos, which has more than 30,000 followers: “Ed Wilson was one of my science heroes. Over the years I came to admire two things in particular. One was his ability to craft technical books so compelling as to launch scores of scientific careers in their wake.”
“The other thing is how Ed Wilson handled professional disagreement," Wild tweeted. "And he had a lot of those, because Wilson was frequently wrong. About a great range of topics. For a guy known for ant research, his interpretation of ant origins was just… silly.”
"But he continued to support, both financially and professionally, the young upstarts who, over and over, proved him wrong. That's a rare trait for a field as ego-driven as evolutionary biology.”
When a follower asked: “Can you explain to a non-biologist bug enthusiast why his interpretation of ant origins was silly?”, Wild replied: “His arrangement of the ant subfamilies, based on subjective hunches of evolutionary relationships rather than data, bore no resemblance at all to the well-supported relationships from subsequent data-based studies, like https://www.pnas.org/content/103/48/18172. (This 2006 research article, "Evaluating Alternative Hypotheses for the Early Evolution and Diversification of Ants," is co-authored by Seán G. Brady, Ted R. Schultz, Brian L. Fisher, and Philip S. Ward and edited by Bert Hölldobler, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany)
“There are no words that adequately describe E.O. Wilson's courage in challenging dogma, his energy in documenting and sharing the wonders of our planet, or his extraordinary creativity," said Diane Ullman, UC Davis professor of entomology and former chair of the Department of Entomology. "So much of his writing touched me deeply, from his writing about the continuum between art and science (Consilience), to his collaboration with Bert Hölldobler, addressing the incredible biology and behavior of social insects (Superorganism). He wrote a wonderful, 'coming of age' novel, seemingly much inspired by his own youth (Anthill)."
"The first time I was able to hear him speak in person was in 1996 at the International Congress of Entomology in Florence, Italy, where he was the plenary speaker opening the meeting. He spoke passionately about loss of biodiversity, and was sounding the alarm on impact of humans and climate change on the planet. He continued to lead this charge up to the very end, never giving up on proposing potential solutions on a global scale. He was witty and with use of metaphor made us see so very many things."
Caleb Johnson, who teaches writing at Appalachian State University, Boone, N.C., described E.O. Wilson as “the world's forestmost authority on biodiversity” in an April 21, 2020 article in The Bitter Southerner. He referred to him as “A world-renowned scientific thinker whose vision for stopping this unprecedented environmental hemorrhaging is based on more than seven decades of careful witness, writing, and work in ecology and conservation."
Johnson wrote that Wilson lost his right eye in a fishing accident in the summer of 1936 near Paradise Beach, Fla., but he never let that stop his goals.
"In the 1940s, E.O. Wilson was an Alabama teenager who wandered the bottomland around Mobile and studied its creatures. He never stopped and became the world's foremost authority on biodiversity. He's 90 now, but still working, because he knows there's a way to undo the damage we've done to Mother Earth."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The “makings,” is now published. It's the first of what is expected to be many in his entomological career.
“A Checklist of Mantodea of Belize, with a Regional Key to Species,” co-authored with UC Davis professor and arachnologist Jason Bond, is now online on ZooKeys.
“Lohit did a great job on this, and there's even an online Lucid identification key,” said Bond, the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics and the newly selected associate dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
“This is a great example of undergraduate research opportunities in entomology,” said Bond. Garikipati worked in the Bond laboratory as a lab assistant before and after receiving his bachelor's degree in entomology in June 2019. He is now studying for his master's degree in biology at Towson University, Md., with advisor Christopher Oufiero.
For the ZooKeys publication, Garikipati and Bond updated the list of known Mantodea in Belize, adding 12 new species to the country records, bringing the total known species of Mantodea in Belize to 21. They provided information on habitat and microhabitat observations; and a regional dichotomous key and Lucid interactive key to known species in Belize. They also included a list of other possibly endemic species. In addition, the scientists remarked on the merit of further sampling efforts in central America, based on recent studies.
“Our findings,” they wrote in their abstract, “suggest that our understanding of Central American Mantodean diversity could be vastly improved by further documentation.”
Grateful to Jason Bond. “After a probably too lengthy amount of time, I am extremely pleased to present my first publication,” Lohit wrote on his Facebook page. “I cannot understate how grateful I am to Jason Bond for providing his time and advice to help guide me through this process, it quite literally would not have been possible without his enthusiasm and support. Thanks to the other members of the Bond lab as well for their advice and critique of various parts of the manuscript during its development. Hopefully we can continue to update and document the fauna of the southern Yucatan peninsula and further our understanding of mantis distribution.”
Mantids have long fascinated Lohit, who grew up in Pleasanton, Alameda County. “I first became interested in praying mantises when I was about six years old,” he said. “I found a praying mantis on my aunt's curtain in India and had no clue what the insect was! After a lot of Googling and finding out that people kept various species as pets, I started rearing both native and exotic species.”
“Admittedly, mantises are not the easiest organism to rear; it took me a few years before I bred my first species, Mantis religiosa (Linnaeus),” Lohit said. “I was really fascinated just by their hunting methods and cryptic strategies; I think I could watch them hunt another thousand times and still be as fascinated. Currently, I think I'm pushing 40 or 50 species that I have reared, with representatives from most families. Captive observations have been a large part of fueling my interest and raising questions about these organisms, as they've afforded me the chance to watch organisms that are often rarely found in the wild.”
High Biodiversity. The June 22-July 6 bioblitz, led by biology professors and Bohart associates Fran Keller of Folsom Lake College and Dave Wyatt of Sacramento City College and headquartered at Toucan Ridge Ecology and Education Society (T.R.E.E.S) Field Station and Research Center, spanned four locations. The area boasts "some of the highest biodiversity the country has to offer," according to its website.
“Lohit and Brian Fridie (undergraduate at the University of Florida, Gainesville) captured many more individuals and more species than I ever saw on any of our trips,” said Keller, who holds a doctorate in entomology from UC Davis, where she studied with major professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology. “Granted, I was collecting everything and leading the trip but having specialists on the trip helps us gather and document insect diversity greater than we could do with just Dave and I collecting.”
“Possibly the thing that surprised me the most was the sheer underrepresentation of taxa in the country,” Garikipati said. “I had expected to maybe find one or two new country records, but I did not expect to more than double the number of species recorded from the country! The other thing that astounded me was how numerous and diverse insect populations were as well (this was my first time collecting in the tropics). Despite the sheer scope of the environment there, mantises were not an uncommon find (though they are still as a whole much more difficult to find than many insect groups).”
“It was a real pleasure searching for mantises in Belize,” Garikipati said. “My favorite find was most likely seeing wild individuals of species I'd only be able to see in pinned collections and on iNaturalist. There is something so enchanting about seeing an animal in its natural habitat, and these observations bring up many questions. It was definitely a fun experience and I am very happy to be able to contribute to our understanding of these animals.”
More Than 50 Specimens. He and his colleagues collected more than 50 specimens from 14 genera and 19 species as part of the survey. Using the specimens they collected, they generated a dichotomous key and a Lucid interactive key.
“The aim is to provide both citizens and entomologists unfamiliar with this group with an easy method to identify collected species with high accuracy,” wrote Garikipati and Bond. “Photographs in the Lucid key are included to aid with character determination.”
In their publication, the scientists thanked Julio Rivera (an entomologist at Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola in Lima, Peru) for his assistance, patience, and providing some of his unpublished work to assist in identification. “We also thank Brendon Boudinot (UC Davis doctoral alumnus) for his boundless energy, support, and methodological feedback; Philip S. Ward (professor and ant specialist at UC Davis) for assisting in identification of Formicidae; Brian T. Fridie (undergraduate at the University of Florida, Gainesville) for his assistance in collecting mantises; and one anonymous reviewer for feedback on an earlier version of the manuscript.”
Garikipati's future plans? “I am looking to continue to incorporate ecology into my comparative morphology work,” he said. “Currently, I am investigating diversity in prey capture mechanisms in mantises, which may have implications for prey specialization.” His thesis title: “Diversity of Prey Capture Mechanisms in Praying Mantises: Implication for Prey Specialization.”
“Mantises,” he said, “have long been homogenized--until relatively recently--both in terms of their behavior and morphology by the general public, and I'm hoping by showcasing diversity both in behavior and morphology, the public's perception of these animals will change. “And this research will provide us valuable insight into the impact mantises have in the ecosystems they are in, as well as their potential use as bioindicators for conservation purposes.”
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane, is gearing up for the holiday season with online sales from the gift shop, which is stocked with insect-themed t-shirts, hoodies, jewelry, posters, books, insect-collecting equipment and other items. (See gift shop inventory)
“Your support enables us to fulfill our mission of documenting and supporting research in biodiversity, educating and inspiring others about insects, and providing state-of-the-art information to the community,” says Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
The Bohart Museum, home of a global collection of nearly eight million insect specimens, houses the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity of the state's deserts, mountains, coast, and the Great Central Valley. The Bohart is also the home of a live “petting zoo” (comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas), and the year-around gift shop.
Items are shipped out on Fridays by priority mail via the U.S. Postal Service. Average arrival times currently average between 6 to 10 business days, officials said. Those who plan on purchasing holiday or birthday gifts should do so as early as possible.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology, founded in 1946 and dedicated to teaching, research and service, is named for noted entomologist Richard Bohart, who taught entomology at UC Davis for more than 50 years, beginning in 1946, and chaired the Department of Entomology from 1963-1967. Said Kimsey: "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."
For more information, email the Bohart Museum at bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or access the website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A newly crafted hooded sweatshirt, the work of artist Charlotte Herbert Alberts and designer Fran Keller, features tardigrades, also known as the water bears.
Available in red, gray and black, from sizes extra small to extra extra large, they'll be offered in the Bohart Museum gift shop during the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day on Saturday, Feb. 16. Proceeds from the sales benefit the insect museum's educational activities.
Alberts is an entomology doctoral candidate who studies Asilidae (Assassin flies) with her major professor, Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart and UC Davis professor of entomology. Alberts' work is a take-off of the California Bear Flag, except hers features an entomologist, insect net in hand, riding a huge tardigrade.
The front features a tardigrade face inside a Bohart logo, a design by Fran Keller, an assistant professor at Folsom Lake College. She received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis, studying with Kimsey and designed many of the shirts, sweatshirts and posters in the Bohart Museum's gift shop.
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 a live "petting zoo" that includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches, 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. Further information is available on the Bohart Museum website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/ or contact (530) 753-0493 or bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.