- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Senior museum scientist Steve Heydon will give a 15-minute presentation on parasitoids and the group that he studies--the jewel wasps (Pteromalidae) from 2 to 2:15. He is a global expert on jewel wasps.
Rosemary Malfi, a postdoctoral fellow in the Neal Williams lab in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will present a mini talk from 3 to 3:15 on some of the parasitoids she worked with while completing her doctorate. She did extensive work on the interaction between conopid flies and bumblebee hosts.
The event is free and open to the public. A family arts and crafts activity is also planned.
"An insect parasitoid is a species whose immatures live off of an insect host, often eating it from the inside out," said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. "It is part of their life cycle and the host generally dies. This sounds like a weird way to make a living, but there are more species of parasitoids than there are insects with any other kind of life history.”
Wasps, flies and beetles are parasitoids to many different insect groups.
Another group of parasitoids that will be highlighted will be the Strepsiptera, or twisted-wing parasites, an order of insects that the late UC Davis entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007), for whom the museum is named, researched for his doctorate in 1938. An entire family of Strepsiptera, the Bohartillidae, is named in honor of Professor Bohart.
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, 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 a rose-haired tarantula named “Peaches.” 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, Saturdays and Sundays and on major holidays. Admission is free.
More information on the Bohart Museum is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or emailing bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or Tabatha Yang at tabyang@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Bohart Museum's gift shop includes a variety of gifts, including jewelry, t-shirts, posters, notecards, insect-collecting equipment, and new and used books.
The EGSA is offering its newest line of t-shirts, a design featuring a long-legged wasp (new species!) on a penny-farthing and other favorites, all created by graduate students or undergraduate students affiliated with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Here's what's available at the Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 Academic Surge on Crocker Lane.
- Earrings and necklaces (with motifs of bees, dragonflies, moths, butterflies and other insects)
- T--shirts for babies, children and adults (walking sticks, monarch butterflies, beetles, dragonflies, dogface butterflies and the museum logo)
- Insect candy (lollipops with either crickets and scorpions, and chocolate-covered scorpions)
- Insect-themed food, Chapul bars made with cricket flour, and flavored mealworms and crickets
- Insect collecting equipment: bug carriers, nets, pins, boxes, collecting kits
- Plastic insect toys and stuffed animals (mosquito, praying mantis, bed bug and others)
- Handmade redwood insect storage boxes by Bohart Museum associate Jeff Smith
- Posters (Central Valley butterflies, dragonflies of California, dogface butterfly), prints of selected museum specimens
- Books by museum-associated authors:
The Story of the Dogface Butterfly (Fran Keller, Greg Kareofelas and Laine Bauer), Insects and Gardens Insects and Gardens: In Pursuit of a Garden Ecology (Eric Grissell), Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (co-authored by Robbin Thorp), California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (co-authored by Robbin Thorp), Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento Region (Art Shapiro), Butterfly Wish (Steve Stoddard, pen name S.S. Dudley), and multiple dragonfly books by Kathy Biggs. - Notecards of bees and other pollinators by Kathy Keatley Garvey and Mary Foley Benson's wasp and caterpillar art
- Bohart logos (youth t-shirts, stickers and patches
- Used books
- Gift memberships
- Naming of insect species
“I wanted an insect that would be able to put its abdomen on the seat and have long enough legs to reach the pedals,” she said. She solved the dilemma by creating a “new species” of wasp and drawing the majority of votes from faculty, staff and students to win the annual contest. The result: “Hymenoptera on Bicycle.”
“I love the new design and think it translated very well on the t-shirts,” said EGSA treasurer and entomology graduate student Cindy Preto of the Frank Zalom lab. “ I expect it to be a great seller.”
It can be ordered in unisex heather navy with white lettering ($15 for small, medium, large, extra large and 2x); youth navy with white print ($15 for small, medium and large); and women's cut, heather red with light yellow print ($17 for small, medium and large).
The t-shirts from years past, all favorites, include "The Beetles" (reminiscent of The Beatles' Abbey Road album), a weevil (See no weevil, hear no weevil, speak no weevil), a dung beetle, honey bee and comb, and a "wanna bee."
Among the other favorites is "Entomology's Most Wanted." Former graduate students Nicholas Herold and Emily Bzydk featured "bug shots" (a take-off of "mug shots") of the malaria mosquito (Anopheles gambiae), the red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) bed bug, (Cimex lecturalius), and the housefly (Musca domestica).
Another gift could be for a beekeeper. Extension apiculturist Elina Niño and staff research associates Bernardo Niño and Charley Nye and graduate student Tricia Bohls are teaching beekeeping classes and those who wish to surprise a beekeeper or a prospective beekeeper with a gift—a workshop—can do so. Check out the list of courses.
The Honey and Pollination Center, directed by Amina Harris, also has a variety of gift items, including notecards and honey. This just in: orange blossom honey. Her email is aharris@ucdavis.edu
And if you want a new insect species named for you, contact the Bohart Museum of Entomology: Lynn Kimsey at lskimsey@ucdavis.edu or Tabatha Yang at tabyang@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
In fact, it's a “Recycling Man” Styrofoam head and mealworms are eating it from the inside out.
Mealworms, commonly fed to captive reptiles and amphibians, “can chew and digest Styrofoam” and that's exactly what they are doing, said UC Davis entomology undergraduate student Wade Spencer, who set up the display Nov. 18.
The open house is set from 1 to 4 p.m., in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane.
Spencer purchased a Styrofoam head online, obtained a Styrofoam insert from a bicycle helmet, and inserted 60 mealworms, or larvae of the darkling beetles.
“Listen and you can hear them chewing,” he said. They will emerge as darkling beetles, the common name of the large family of beetles, Tenebrionidae. The insects are known as plant scavengers, as they feed on decaying leaves, rotting wood, dead insects and other matter.
“This is a recycling project that's all in the head,” Wade quipped
“It turns out that mealworms have some hidden talents,” said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis. “They're not just good for feeding to pet reptiles or eating in snacks from HotLix. “These darkling beetle larvae have some dynamic gut bacteria.”
Also at the open house, visitors are encouraged o bring insect or spider specimens and ask questions of the entomologists. The specimens could include everything from bed bugs to fleas to spiders.
Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, will be available for discussions on bumble bees and other pollinators, and will sign his books. He is the co-author of “Bumble Bees of North America: An identification Guide” (Princeton University) and “California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists” (Heyday).
The Bohart Museum hosts special weekend hours, free and open to the public. Families are encouraged to attend.
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 a rose-haired tarantula named “Peaches.” 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, Saturdays and Sundays and on major holidays. Admission is free.
More information on the Bohart Museum is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or email bmuseum@ucdavis.edu. Tabatha Yang tabyang@ucdavis.edu) does public education and outreach and conducts groups tours.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Delusional infestation is linked to a wide variety of conditions, ranging from AIDS, alcoholism, diabetes, cancer and Parkinson's disease to medications and drug abuse, said Kimsey, author of a newly published paper in Acta Dermato-Venereologica, an international peer-reviewed journal for clinical and experimental research in the field of dermatology and venereology.
“Delusional infestation, delusional parasitosis, Morgellon's or Ekbom's syndrome are all names for a disorder where sufferers feel itching, crawling and pinching sensations (paresthesia) that may become chronic,” she wrote. “These individuals believe they are infested with parasites, yet no parasites can be found.”
“Delusional infestation is a symptom,” she said, “not a disease.”
Kimsey, who has been researching delusional infestation for more than two decades, described chronic pruritus or chronic itching as “an itch that persists for six weeks or longer. It is a major symptom in a diversity of diseases and health issues.”
Some blame the itching on “no-see-ums,” or tiny valley black gnats that feed on blood. “But no-see-ums are very regional,” Kimsey said, “and really seasonal in most places, and they most decidedly don't go indoors.”
In her review article, Kimsey lists medical conditions reported to cause chronic itching, pinching sensations and delusional infestations. They include AIDS/HIV, alcoholism, autoimmune disease, cancer, cholestasis, diabetes mellitus, hepatitis, hyperthyroidism, Lupus erythematosus, renal failure, stress, and stroke, as well as meth, heroin and cocaine use.
She said that some of the most commonly prescribed U.S. drugs and side effects that can cause skin sensations, but no physical changes, include antibiotics, analgesics, antidepressants, and medications for hypertension, angina, gastric ulcers, and diabetes.
Kimsey defines “delusional infestation” as the “mistaken belief that the skin and often other parts of the body are infested by parasites. The reported identification of these parasites ranges from insect groups, usually flies or Strepsiptera (commonly called twisted-wing parasites), to mites, nematodes, ‘worms' or even new and unknown types of organisms.”
They have usually suffered for months or longer, she said, “and have seen numerous specialists ranging from dermatologists to entomologists. They come from a variety of occupational and socioeconomic backgrounds, generally possess average or above average intelligence, and generally lack a fear of insects…They often engage in self-mutilation, which can range from scratches to deep ulcerations, in their attempt to dig out the parasites. Unfortunately, the delusion may also result in the use of home remedies, a distrust of prescription drugs and doctors, and exposure to potentially dangerous levels of pesticides and cleaning products, such as bleach.”
In one study, the Centers for Disease Control found the syndrome in 3.7 Kaiser Permanente health care patients per 100,000 in central California. Using that statistic, Kimsey calculated that some 9300 residents of the United States may have delusional infestation. But it is likely much higher, she said, due in part to the growing use of illegal drugs.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated the worldwide production of amphetamine-type stimulants, which includes methamphetamine, at nearly 500 metric tons a year, with 24.7 million abusers. Latest U.S. statistics (2008) indicate that 13 million people over the age of 12 have used meth and 529,000 are regular users.
Meth addicts commonly report bugs crawling under their skin, or what the medical and scientific communities label as “meth mites.”
In reality, only a few groups of insects “live entirely in or on human skin in some life stage, including lice, tunga fleas and maggots,” the UC Davis entomologist said. “Then there are the free-living blood-feeders, including adult flies (mosquitoes, blackflies, sandflies and horseflies), kissing bugs, bedbugs and fleas.” Most of these bugs just simply feed and leave, she said.
Some of the sufferers blame the medical and scientific communities for failing to research a new bug or causal organism. “Anything new would be a tremendous discovery, but despite decades of searching, no one has found an actual organism associate with the syndrome,” said Kimsey, whose research included studying samples brought into the Bohart Museum.
The delusional infestation may arise from an underlying physiological or physical cause that triggers an itch pathway, she said, and that itch pathway can also be “triggered by exogenous causes, such as drug use or abuse.” Underlying psychiatric conditions may also be linked to this pathway.
Treatment, Kimsey said, is “largely based on the patient's interpretation of the cause and the physician's response to that interpretation.”
“The bottom line is that it is a symptom, not a disease,” she reiterated.
Related Links:
Delusional Parasitosis: What's Attacking Me? UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM)
Delusional Parsitosis Bohart Museum of Entomology
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Leslie Saul-Gershenz, a postdoctoral scientist in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology beginning January 2016, received the $220,000 grant from Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit of the Bureau of Land Management for the first year of the study.
“The grant will fund research to determine the type and extent of impacts that utility-scale solar installations on public lands may have on pollinator-plant webs in desert ecosystems,” Saul-Gershenz said. “Pollinators play a vital role in maintaining functional ecosystems. This project addresses the need for documenting instances of impacts from fragmentation of pollinator trap lines, loss of vegetation habitat for different life stages of pollinators, disruption of dependencies between endemic plants or endemic invertebrates and their respective companion pollinators or host plants, and potential demographic population declines from pollinator mortalities induced by specific types of renewable energy technology.”
Her co-principal investigators are pollination ecologist Neal Williams, associate professor in the department, and Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and UC Davis professor of entomology. They will collaborate with native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis and a Bohart Museum associate; research associate Thomas Zavortink of the Bohart Museum; Terry Griswold of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service Bee Biology Lab; and John Ascher of the National University of Singapore.
Saul-Gershenz is known for her bee-parasite research on solitary ground-nesting bees in the genus Habropoda and its nest parasite, a blister beetle, Meloe franciscanus. The larvae of the parasitic blister beetle produce a chemical signal that mimics the sex pheromone of female solitary bee to lure males to the larval aggregation. The larvae attach to the male bee and then transfer to the female during mating. The end result: a larva winds up in the nest of a female bee, where it eats the nest provisions and likely the host egg.
The Mojave and Sonoran Deserts are biological hot spots of biodiversity supporting more than 689 species of bees and 1512 species of plants in the Mojave Desert alone, Saul-Gershenz said.
The grant cites several publications:
Baldwin, B. 2015. Personal Communication. U. C. Berkeley, Jepson Herbarium. Number of species of plants in the Mojave Desert.
Griswold, T., Higbee, S. and Messinger. O. (2006). Pollination Ecology Final Report for Biennium 2003, Clark County, Nevada (2004-2005). Logan, Utah, USDA-ARS Bee Biology
Zavortink, T. and Kimsey, L. “Bees (Hymenoptera, Apoidea) of the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, Imperial County, California.” In preparation.
