Entomologist Jeff Smith: The Master Builder of Insect Specimen Drawers

Jeff Smith, curator of the Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, chats with a visitor. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

And then you notice how they are stored--in intricate wooden drawers made by entomologist and master builder Jeff Smith, volunteer curator of the Lepidoptera collection.

As of today, he's crafted a total of 2,487 drawers, and gifted them to the Bohart Museum. At the going rate of $75 per drawer, that's a whopping $186,525 worth.

"I number the lid and bottom to keep them together so I know that the next drawers I make will start with 2,488, so to date, I've made 2,487," Smith said today, when asked the total number. "Around 400 or so have been from repurposed redwood from old decks and fence posts."

He made his first drawer some 22 years ago. He explains how to make them on this website,
https://www.resourcefulentomology.com/insect-drawers. 

"Entomology is my passion and the Bohart Museum is my cause," Smith says.

A Bohart volunteer since 1998,  he not only crafts the drawers, but he has spread the wings of some 180,000 moths and butterflies, typically 6,000 or more each year for the past 30-plus years.  He also has donated some 100,000 specimens (primarily butterflies and moths but a few other insects, including beetles) to the Bohart Museum. 

In addition, he engages in public service at the Bohart Museum's open house, answering questions about the insects and the collection, and sharing his knowledge at schools, festivals and other venues. He also demonstrates the craft of pinning and spreading moths and butterflies to the UC Davis Entomology Club.

The Lepidoptera collection now totals about 750,000 specimens. Lately Smith has been redoing the header labels in the unit trays for much of the Lepidoptera collection, "making the new ones in the better format where the geographic ranges of the various species and subspecies are on the label. This is so helpful when it comes to placing new material into the collection." 

For his outstanding public service, Smith received the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences'  Friend of the College Award in 2015. At the time, Lynn Kimsey, then director of the and now a UC Davis distinguished professor emerita, said: “You could not ask for a better friend than Jeff Smith. He  has brought us international acclaim and saved us $160,000 through donations of specimens and materials, identification skills and his professional woodworking skills. This does not include the thousands of hours he has donated in outreach programs that draw attention to the museum, the college and the university.”

Kimsey, who directed the museum for 34 years, stepping down on Feb. 1, 2024 when Professor Jason Bond accepted the position, remembers when Smith joined the museum. “When Jeff was working for Univar Environmental Services, a 35-year career until his retirement in 2013, he would spend some of his vacation days at the museum. Over the years Jeff took over more and more of the curation of the butterfly and moth collection. He took home literally thousands of field pinned specimens and spread their wings at home (in Rocklin), bringing them back to the museum perfectly mounted." 

Smith, who has loved insects since his childhood in San Jose, is an active member of the international Lepidopterists' Society (since 1967). He and his colleagues hosted the 2019 meeting of the Lepidopterists' Society in Davis. 

The Gold Standard. The Bohart Museum is considered one of the top insect museums in the world. Professor Paul Opler (1938-2023) of Colorado State University, an international authority on butterflies and moths, heaped praise on the Lepidoptera collection when he said after a visit:  “I consider the Bohart Lepidoptera collection to be The Gold Standard to which we all should aspire.”

Opler, who received his doctorate in entomology in 1970 from UC Berkeley, authored such noted books on butterflies and moths as the Peterson Field Guide to Butterflies of Eastern North America, the Peterson Field Guide to Butterflies of Western North America, Butterflies East of the Great Plains: An Illustrated Natural History, and Moths of Western North America. He also served as the first editor of American Entomologist, published by the Entomological Society of  America).

TheBohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455Crocker Lane,  houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens. It also maintains a live petting zoo (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects,  tarantulas and more) and an insect-themed gift shop stocked with books, posters,jewelry, t-shirts, and hooded sweatshirts. Favorite sale items include Smith's handcrafted, hand-turned, lathed wooden pens that he donated to the gift shop. (Email bmuseum@ucdavis.edu for more information.)