The Bohart and The Sticks
When you think of sticks, you may think of the object you toss to your dog, what you step on while taking your morning walk, or "the stick people" masquerading as your family on the rear window of your car.
But if you're at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, "sticks" can mean only one thing: the walking sticks or the stick insects in the live petting zoo.
It's a popular attraction at Bohart Museum open houses and at public walk-ins.
Entomologist and UC Davis doctoral alumna Fran Keller, a professor at Folsom Lake College, a lecturer at UC Davis, and president of the Pacific Coast Entomology Association, knows her sticks.
When she was studying for her doctorate in entomology at UC Davis and working at the Bohart Museum, she designed a humorous t-shirt inscribed with “Know Your Sticks,” featuring drawings of four sticks: a stick person, a real stick or twig, a Vietnamese walking stick and an Australian spiny stick (family Phasmatidae). Keller designed the shirt, and Ivana Li, then an undergraduate student and president of the UC Davis Entomology Club, drew the illustrations.
The stick person, named Talea persona (Latin for "stick person"), is the kind you might see on a rear windshield, Keller said. The real stick (Twigus stickus) is one you might see in the woods. And the Vietnamese (Medauroidea extradentata) and Australian sticks (Extatosoma tiaratum)? You can see them—and hold them--in the Bohart Museum.
The t-shirts are among those available in the Bohart's gift shop. The Bohart is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. Proceeds benefit the museum's educational programs.
The Bohart petting zoo also includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches, tarantulas and assorted other critters.
Public walk-in hours are Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Admission is free, but for parking, see more information on the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu/ or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
The next open house is Moth Night on Saturday, July 12 from 7 to 11 p.m. A blacklighting display, with an ultraviolet light to attract moths and other night-flying insects, will be set up just outside the building. Inside, visitors will learn all about moths, in keeping with National Moth Week, July 19-27. All Bohart Museum open houses are free and family friendly.
The Bohart Museum, directed by Professor Jason Bond, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens and is the seventh largest insect collection in North America. It is also the home of the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum in 1946.
Bond serves as the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in the Department of Entomology and Nematology and is associate dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
