Forensic entomologist Bob Kimsey wore his traditional ghillie suit to the Bohart Museum party. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)If you attended the BohartMuseum of Entomology's private party, hosted by the BohartMuseum Society for its members and friends, you witnesseda praying mantis, a dragonfly, a honeybee, a monarch butterfly and a horse fly all getting along fabulously.
The predators and their prey were all in costumes, of course:
- The queen bee: UC Davis distinguished professorLynnKimsey, director of the Bohart Museum
- The praying mantis: TabathaYang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum
- The green darner dragonfly: Christofer Brothers, a UC Davis doctoral candidate researching dragonflies
- The monarch: Barbara Heinsch, a Bohart Museum volunteer, who arrived with her entomologist-husband, Mike Pitcairn, retired senior environmental scientist, supervisor, California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA). He wore his CDFA lab coat and swung an insect net.
And the guy in the ghillie suit serving beverages (that would be forensic entomologist Robert "Bob"Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology andNematology) is keenly interested in flies, but he didn'tnet the fly.
UC Davis entomology alumna Ivana Li, a biology lab manager at UC Davis, catered the event and arrived with her dog, Juniper, dressed as a taco. Lynn Kimseycut a carrot cake, decorated with tiny carrots and large googly eyes.
Some attendees, including Joanna Chiu, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology; UC Davis doctoral alumna Fran Keller, professor at Folsom Lake College;Bohart Museum associate Greg Karofelas; UC Davis doctoral alumnus Dick Meyer (who studied with the late Richard Bohart); and entomology student Kaitai Liu, arrived as themselves, sans Halloween costumes.
The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 CrockerLane, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a live insect petting zoo and a gift shop. Founded in 1946 by the late UC Davis professor Richard Bohart, it has been directed by Kimsey, his former doctoral student, since 1990. (See more Halloween images on the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematologywebsite)
Next Open House on Monarchs.The Bohart's next open open house, set from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 4, is on monarchs.
The event, free and family friendly, will be held in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, CrockerLane. This is an opportunity for attendees to ask questions about monarchs (Danaus plexippus) and nativevs. non-native milkweed, among other topics.
The scientists will include:
- UC Davis distinguished professor emeritusArt Shapiroof the Department of Evolution and Ecology, who has studied butterfly populations in central California since 1972 and maintains a research website,Art's Butterfly World.
- UC Davis emeritus professor Hugh Dingle,a worldwide authority on animal migration, including monarchs. He is the author ofMigration: The Biology of Life on the Move(Oxford University Press), a sequel to the first edition published in 1996.See news storyon the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.
- UC Davis professorLouie Yang, who does research on monarchs. Due to parental duties, he may be able to attend only the last part of the open house.See news storyabout his work.
- UCDavis professorElizabeth Croneof the Department of Evolution and Ecology, formerly of Tufts University, who researches monarchs.See news storyabout the declining monarch population on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematologywebsite.
- UC Davis postdoctoral fellowAramee Diethelmof the ElizabethCrone lab. She holds a doctorate from the University of Nevada, Reno. Both her Ph.D. and postdoctoral work are on monarch butterflies.As a doctoral student, she investigated the phytochemical landscape ofmilkweed(Asclepias) species across northern Nevada and the effects of this variation onwestern monarch (Danaus plexippus) butterflyperformance.See her researchposted on GoogleScholar, and her blog on "Drought Influences Monarch Host Plant Selection."
Shapiropoints out that the monarch "is NOT a focal species in my research and I am NOT a monarch expert. On the other hand, I have a unique breeding-season census data set starting in 1999. The only other census data are for the overwintering roosts on the coast. It has become apparent that the two data sets do not always agree." Shapiro said he'd talk briefly about this at the open house.
The BohartMuseum, founded in 1946, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens; a live insect petting zoo; and a gift shop. It is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 CrockerLane. For more information, access the website or email bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
