The Bohart Museum of Entomology will dedicate its open house, “Night at the Museum” (formerly known as “Moth Night”) to the late Jerry Powell, longtime director of the Essig Museum Entomology of UC Berkeley, and an international authority on moths. He died July 8 in Berkeley at age 90.

Powell was a Bohart Museum associate and a scientific collaborator, identifying scores of insects and attending many of the Lepidopterist 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 traditional blacklighting (ultraviolet or UV) display to attract moths and other night-flying insects. Bohart Research Affiliate John De Benedictus, a retired UC Davis Staff Research Associate, also known as "The Moth Man," usually heads the blacklighting project with several other scientists. 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.

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.

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."

The Bohart Museum, directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, is the home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens; a live insect petting zoo; and a gift shop.

Ants! Let's talk about ants!

The laboratory of Professor Phil Ward, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will provide live ants, specimens, information, and engage in one-on-one discussions about ant species at the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, May 21.

The event, free and family friendly, will take place in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane. The family arts-and-crafts activity will be to create paper ant headbands.  "The current version has serrated mandibles, but people can go free form, too," said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. "We're hoping for a colony of visitors with red headbands."

Among the Ward lab scientists scheduled to participate are doctoral candidates Jill Oberski and Zach Griebenow (both are expected to receive their PhDs this year),  and third-year doctoral student Ziv Lieberman. 

Griebenow and Oberski are veterans of UC Davis teams that won national championships in the Entomological Society of America's Entomology Games or "Bug Bowls."  (See news story) UC Davis teams won national championships in 2022, 2018, 2016 and 2015. 

The Bohart Museum featured Ward, a noted ant systematist, in a video, "All About Ants II" shown at the 2021 UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day. It is posted on YouTube at https://youtu.be/d8eRNsD8dxo.

Ward offered an hour-long, introductory presentation on ants and answered scores of questions, drawing viewers from as far away as Virginia.  He illustrated his talk with ant images taken by his former doctoral student Alex Wild (PhD from UC Davis in 2005), curator of entomology at the University of Texas, Austin, and a noted macro photographer (http://www.alexanderwild.com).

Ants originated about 120 million years ago (early Cretaceous), evolving from "wasp-like creatures," Ward said. They are members of the order Hymenoptera, and their closest relatives include honey bees, cockroach wasp and the mud daubers.

Ward related that live in long-lived colonies with (1) cooperative brood care (2) overlapping generations and (3) reproductive division of labor, the hall marks of eusocial behavior. He also pointed out:

• A typical ant colony contains a reproductive queen, numerous non-reproductive workers and brood (eggs, larvae, pupae)
• Colonies of ants can be thought of as superorganisms: tightly integrated and cooperative entities with complex systems of communication and division of labor (castes)

California is home to some 300 species of ants, but thousands more live in the tropics. Globally, there may be as many as 40,000 to 50,000 species of ants, the professor estimated, but only about 14,000 are described.

"Ants have occupied almost all of the world's land surfaces, from deserts to rain forests," Ward said in the video. "There's a few places they're absent. They're not in Antarctica, no surprise! They haven't colonized the Arctic and a few very high elevation tropical mountains, but apart from that, almost any place you go on land you'll see our friends, the ants. And they have assumed a quite a diverse array of ecological roles. Some of them are predators, others are scavengers, and some are seed collectors, and these habits vary tremendously among different species in different parts of the world."

Ants communicate largely by chemical (pheromones) and tactile means, Ward said. Their vision is "not particularly acute." He pointed out that that they lay a trail pheromones from the source of food back to the nest. They have alarm pheromones, causing other workers to act defensively. Chemicals also help ants distinguish their nest mates.

Some ants, like the Argentine ants, are pests. These invaders from South America "form super colonies, which means different colonies don't fight each other; they're all cooperating. And the other downside of Argentine ants is that they tend to eliminate native ants. So over the years I've lived in Davis, I have certainly noticed that native ants have declined as the Argentine ants have expanded. And they expand not just in, say, urban areas, but along certain natural habitats and one that they really like is the riparian habitat. So if you look along rivers and streams that are near urban areas, they're getting invaded by Argentine ants.  And when they do, most native ants just disappear.  This is a very tough aggressive ant and the mellow California ants can't handle an aggressive invader from South America. So they just disappear."

The Bohart Museum, directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a petting zoo (including Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas) and a gift shop, stocked with insect-themed t-shirts, hoodies, jewelry, posters, books, and collecting equipment. 

Founded in 1946, the Bohart is open to the public Mondays through Thursdays, from 8 a.m. to noon, and 1 to 5 p.m. More information is available on the Bohart website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or by emailing bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.

A newly described bacteria species found more than a decade ago inside the gut of a stick insect housed in the Bohart Museum of Entomology petting zoo, now bears the name of two very surprised UC Davis entomologists.

Meet Chryseobacterium kimseyorum, named for UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum, and her husband, forensic entomologist Robert "Bob" Kimsey, both of the Department of Entomology and Nematology.

“We've had a few things named after us but never bacteria--that's a first,” said Lynn Kimsey.   

The story begins more than a decade ago when then UC Davis doctoral student Matan Shelomi, now an associate professor of entomology at National Taiwan University, Taiwan, was studying the digestive physiology of the stick and leaf insects, Phasmatodea, for his Ph.D, under the guidance of his major professor, Lynn Kimsey. He isolated and cultured bacteria from the guts and cages of the stick insects. Some of the species seemed new to science, but Shelomi had neither the time nor the resources to prove it then. 

He stored the microbes inside the deep freezers of the Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology. 

The years slipped by. So did the memory of isolating the bacteria.  Then after becoming a professor himself, his graduate student, Chiao-Jung Han, discovered a new bacteria species inside a beetle. That prompted Shelomi to renew his interest in the microbes from the Bohart Museum. 

"Thankfully, I kept all my notes from graduate school," says Shelomi, "so I was able to check and see which strains I had flagged as possibly new species. When I saw one of them was the same genus as the new microbe found in Taiwan, I realized this was an opportunity to describe them both together." So Shelomi emailed Kyria Boundy-Mills, curator of the Phaff Collection, “who had my old specimen revived and shipped across the Pacific.” 

Analysis confirmed two new species. The result: A research article published April 19 in the International Journal of Systemic and Evolutionary Microbiology. The title:“Chryseobacterium oryctis sp. nov., Isolated from the Gut of the Beetle Oryctes rhinoceros, and Chryseobacterium kimseyorum sp. nov., Isolated from a Stick Insect Rearing Cage.” 

Han named his species after the beetle he found it in. Shelomi named his species (which he found in Eurycantha calcarata, commonly known as the "Giant New Guinea Stick Insect” or “Thorny Devil Stick”) after his former bosses. The suffix -orum in kimseyorum indicates that the name honors both Kimseys. “Officially one cannot name a microbe after more than one person, but there is precedent, so the (journal) editors allowed it. My grad student wanted to name her microbe after her dog, BaBa, but the editors did not allow that. Spoil-sports!” 

The abstract begins: “Two strains of Chryseobacterium identified from different experiments are proposed to represent new species. Strain WLa1L2M3^T was isolated from the digestive tract of an Oryctes rhinoceros beetle larva. Strain 09-1422^T was isolated from a cage housing the stick insect Eurycantha calcarata. Sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA and rpoB genes found both strains to be similar but not identical to other Chryseobacterium species. Whole-genome sequencing suggested the isolates represent new species, with average nucleotide identity values ranging from 74.6 to 80.5?%.” 

Other co-authors are Wen-Ming Chen, Hsin-Kuang Chen, all scientists in Taiwan, and Estelle Mühle and Dominique Clermont, both of France. The Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, funded the research in a grant awarded to Shelomi, the principal investigator. 

Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum, relayed the news to a tour group visiting the insect museum on April 20.  “I just used this story today with a tour group,” she told Shelomi. “I mentioned how your student was denied her dog's name. I love how this ties the Bohart and the Phaff Yeast collection together and then California and Taiwan.” 

 As for the stick insect, “It's pretty aggressive for a walking stick,” Lynn Kimsey said, noting that Andy Engilis, curator of the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, told her about his work in Papua New Guinea. “These walking sticks would actually chase rodents out of their burrows and take over the burrows to rest in,” she related. “That's pretty tough for a walking stick.” 

Meanwhile, the Kimseys are enjoying their new namesake. Lynn Kimsey already has seven other species named for her: 

1.  Mystacagenia kimseyae Cambra & Wasbauer 2020 (spider wasp)
2.  Oligoaster kimseyae Soliman 2013 (tiphiid wasp)
3.  Exaerate kimseyae Oliviera 2011 (orchid bee)
4.  Spilomena kimseyae Antropov 1993 (solitary wasp)
5.  Manaos kimseyae Smith (argid sawfly)
6.  Spintharina kimseyae Bohart 1987 (cuckoo wasp)
7.  Neodryinus kimseyae Olmi 1987 (dryinid wasp)

Bob Kimsey has as at least two species named for him: Acordulacera kimseyi Smith, 2010 (sawfly) and Grandiella kimseyi Summers & Schuster (mite). 

Shelomi, a Harvard University graduate who received his doctorate from UC Davis in 2014, served as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Germany for two years before accepting a faculty position in 2017 at National Taiwan University. 

Shelomi returned to UC Davis in 2017 to present a seminar on "Revelations from Phasmatodea Digestive Track Transcriptomics,” to the department.

Registration is underway for several classes offered by the UC Davis Bee Haven, located on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus.

All classes, taught by Haven manager Christine Casey, are offered as either remote ($25 registration) or hybrid remote/in-person ($40 registration). All proceeds support the Haven.

Excerpts from the Bee Haven website:

I Planted a Bee Garden: Now What?
Saturday, April 1, 2023, 9 to 10:30 a.m.

Many California gardeners are removing their water-hungry turf and replacing it with lower-water plants that provide food and habitat for bees and other animals. But if all you know about garden maintenance is how to start the lawnmower, deciding what to plant and learning how to maintain it can be daunting.

Aimed at beginning bee gardeners, this class will cover the basics of turf conversion and weed control along with plant selection for bees and other pollinators. We'll also cover maintenance of a turf yard compared to planted borders.

Registration links: remote class or remote/in-person class.

Advanced Bee Gardening
Saturday, April 22, 2023, 9 to 10:30 am

This class is for experienced gardeners who want to better support bees in their gardens. We'll discuss garden design and plant selection based on bee biology as well as how to encourage insect natural enemies to keep bee gardens pesticide-free. We'll also learn about some of the latest research on bees and gardens and how to incorporate this into your garden. The class will conclude with a tour of the Haven for a hands-on look at plants and bees.

Registration links: remote class or remote/in-person class.

Collecting Bees Through Photos
Saturday, April 1, 2023, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Bees are fascinating animals, and many people are intrigued by the idea of having their own bee collection for closer observation. An effective way to ‘collect' bees without harm is by making a bee photo album. We'll start with an overview of bee anatomy and classification and learn how to distinguish bees from other insects. We'll then look at key features of common bees that can be used to identify them in flight. The class will finish outdoors for hands-on experience observing, identifying, and photographing bees.

Registration links: remote class or remote/in-person class.

The Haven, located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, is open daily at no charge from dawn to dusk.  

History of the Bee Garden. 

It all began with a news story. A feature on bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, written by Kathy Keatley Garvey, department's communication specialist, drew the attention of Häagen-Dazs, a premium ice cream brand which depends on honey bees to pollinate many of the plants that form the basis of its ice cream flavors.  Häagen-Dazs  initially donated $125,000, later increasing it to some $500,000.  

Häagen-Dazs wanted the funds to benefit sustainable pollination research, target colony collapse disorder, and support a postdoctoral researcher.  It was decided to install an educational garden, conduct a design contest, and award a research postdoctoral fellowship to Michelle Flenniken (now with the Montana State University).

A Sausalito team--landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki--won the design competition. The garden was installed in the fall of 2009 under the direction of interim department chair Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology.

An eight-member panel selected the winner of the design competition: Professor Kimsey; founding garden manager Missy Borel (now Missy Borel Gable), then of the California Center for Urban Horticulture; David Fujino, executive director, California Center for Urban Horticulture at UC Davis; Aaron Majors, construction department manager, Cagwin & Dorward Landscape Contractors, based in Novato; Diane McIntyre, senior public relations manager, Häagen-Dazs ice cream; Heath Schenker, professor of environmental design, UC Davis; Jacob Voit, sustainability manager and construction project manager, Cagwin and Dorward Landscape Contractors; and Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist, UC Davis Department of Entomology.

Others who had a key role in the founding and "look" of the garden included the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, founded and directed by the duo of entomologist/artist Diane Ullman, professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, and self-described "rock artist" Donna Billick. The art in the garden is the work of their students, ranging from those in Entomology 1 class to community residents. Eagle Scout Derek Tully planned, organized and built a state-of-the-art fence around the garden.

"The Honey Bee Haven will be a pollinator paradise," Kimsey related in December 2008. "It will provide a much needed, year-round food source for our bees at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. We anticipate it also will be a gathering place to inform and educate the public about bees. We are grateful to Haagen-Dazs for its continued efforts to ensure bee health."

The garden, Kimsey said, would include a seasonal variety of blooming plants that will provide a year-round food source for honey bees. It would be a living laboratory supporting research into the nutritional needs and natural feeding behaviors of honey bees and other insect pollinators.

Visitors to the garden, she said, would able to glean ideas on how to establish their own bee-friendly gardens and help to improve the nutrition of bees in their own backyards.

The timeline: 

Feb. 19, 2008
Häagen-Dazs Donation to UC Davis 

Dec. 8, 2008
Häagen-Dazs Launches Bee Garden Design Contest

Aug. 6, 2008
Insect Virus Researcher Michelle Flenniken Named Häagen-Dazs Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Davis 

Feb. 26, 2009
Sausalito Team Wins Design Competition

Aug. 6, 2009
Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven Site Preparation

Aug. 13, 2009
Bee Biology Website to Be Launched

Aug. 13, 2009
Thinking Outside the Box

Sept. 15, 2009
Campus Buzzway: Wildflowers

Dec. 15, 2009
Bee Biology Website Lauded

2010 
June 6, 2010
Grand Opening Celebration of Honey Bee Garden

July 15, 2010
Art Is Where the Community Is; Blending Science with Art in the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven

July 30, 2010
More Than 50 Bee Species Found in Haven: Robbin Thorp (Now there's more than 80 and counting!)

Aug. 25, 2010
Donna Billick: Miss Bee Haven

Aug. 11, 2011
What the Signs Tell Us in the UC Davis Honey Bee Garden

Aug. 24, 2011
Royal Visit to Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility

April 11, 2012
Brian Fishback: Spreading the Word about Honey Bees

Aug. 26, 2013
Eagle Scout Project: Fence Around the Bee Garden

Sept. 11 2012
A Fence to Behold

2013
April 25, 2013
UC Davis Bee Team Wins Major Award

Aug. 1, 2013
Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven Place to Be
With photo of founding volunteers 

Donors 
List of Donors Who Helped Launch the Garden (2009 through July 2014)

Missy Borel, then manager of the California Center for Urban Horticulture (and now Missy Borel Gable, director of the California Master Gardener Program) served as the founding manager, a part-time position. Nineteen volunteers assisted her. 

Today the bee garden is the UC Davis Bee Haven. Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, serves as the faculty director of the garden. Christine Casey is the academic program manager. For more information on the garden, access the Bee Haven website or contact beegarden@ucdavis.edu.