Mark your calendars for a fun and educational evening!
The Bohart Museum of Entomology will celebrate National Moth Week by hosting its annual Moth Night open house on Saturday, July 18.
The event, free and family friendly, will be held from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. in the Bohart Museum, Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus, as well as outside on the grounds where two blacklighting displays are scheduled to be set up.
What is blacklighting? It's a field method used by scientists to catch and study nocturnal insects drawn to a ultraviolet (UV) light on a white sheet. Plans call for one blacklighting display just outside the Bohart Museum, and headed by John "Moth Man" de Benedictus (to talk about the gear), and the other by entomologist Joel Hernandez in the Shields Oak Grove, UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden.
De Benedictis has amassed a moth collection of some 600 species from the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve and 300 species from his backyard in Davis. He received a grant from the former Institute of Ecology to study moths at the Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve where he collected from 1989 until the last major fire in 2020.
Hernandez, a UC Davis entomology graduate, maintains a blog, "The Adventures of a Moth Man," where he posts educational information and images. (See his section on blacklighting.) He and his wife, Melissa Cruz Hernandez, the Arboretum's outreach and leadership program manager, will set up the blacklighting display.
"Joel will be doing a large-scale blacklight endeavor (mercury vapor plus other lights) in the Shields Oak Grove section of the Arboretum from 9:30 to 11:30 p.m.," Yang wrote in an email. "He is prepared for a crowd. Hopefully, they get lots of insects there. Melissa will rally Arboretum students to help escort people safely through the grove at night. This will be an awesome addition to Moth Night! Thank you, Joel and Melissa."
The Bohart Museum's home page features an informational video on "blacklighting in a backyard at Davis," by Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas.
The event is an opportunity to learn about local and global moths, said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator.
What's planned at the open house?
- Jeff Smith, curator of the Bohart Museum's worldwide Lepidoptera collection, will staff the Lepidoptera aisle with Kareofelas. They will discuss the specimens and answer questions.
- Microscopes will be set up so visitors can examine moth specimens.
- Silk moths and hornworms will be displayed.
- The differences between butterflies and moths will be discussed.
- Doctoral student Peter Coggan of the Santiago Ramirez lab will staff a table on migration and radars.
- Visitors can hold and take selfies of live stick insects (walking sticks) from the Bohart Museum's petting zoo.
- The family arts and crafts activity will be making moth antennae headbands.
- Chalk art will take place on the walkways in front of the Bohart Museum, where attendees can try their hand at creating moths and other insects.
The Bohart Museum, founded in 1946, is the home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens; a live petting zoo (including Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas) and an insect-themed gift shop, stocked with T-shirts, hoodies, books, posters, jewelry, stuffed toy animals, and insect-collecting equipment.
Director of the Bohart Museum is Professor Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of Systematics. He is the executive associate dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and president of the American Arachnological Society.
For more information, access the website or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
During National Moth Week, set July 18-26, communities around the globe "come together to celebrate the beauty, diversity, and ecological importance of moths," according to the organizers.
Cover image: Blacklighting display (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
