April 3, 2008
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| Brian Turner shows butterfly specimens to Aracade Middle School students. (Photos by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
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| Museum scientist Steve Heydon (background, far left) and Arcade students. |
DAVIS—They saw the California dogface butterfly specimens, the live Madagascar hissing cockroaches and the very much alive giant walking sticks.
But of the some seven million insects housed in the Bohart Museum of Entomology on the University of California, Davis campus, students from Sacramento’s Arcade Middle School liked the live insects the best.
“They always like the live ones best,” said museum scientist Steve Heydon, who conducted the tour with museum associates Brian Turner, outreach program coordinator, and William Yuen, a UC Davis student.
“And it doesn’t seem to matter what age group we have—from first graders to high school students to teachers—they always ask the same questions,” Heydon said.
The tour, booked by Cabinet Secretary Dan C. Dunmoyer, Deputy Chief of Staff for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, drew 51 students, all seventh or eighth graders, and 10 adults. Dunmoyer’s son, David, is a seventh grader at Arcade.
“It was our pleasure to visit UC Davis and receive a very special tour in the entomology department,” Dunmoyer said. “All five students I carpooled listed this as their favorite part of the day.”
“The two teachers, Richard Barnes and Dan Androlowicz, are encouraging the students to begin preparing for college and learn why it ‘is to cool’ to go to school,” Dunmoyer said.
Dunmoyer said he especially enjoyed the tour “as we are spending a lot of time on the light brown apple moth and its impact on the environment and farming communities in California.”
The Bohart guides divided visitors into three groups. While Yuen showed the students the Madagascar hissing cockroaches and the giant walking sticks, Turner discussed the butterfly specimens, and Heydon talked about insects and fielded questions.
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| Museum scientist Steve Heydon explains the body counterparts of insects and humans, comparing the nose to the antenna. |
“What’s the most dangerous insect to humankind?” Heydon asked. “What insect kills the most people throughout the world?”
Most dangerous? The honey bee, Heydon said. It’s the most dangerous to the people who are allergic to bee stings, he explained. People abnormally sensitive to bee stings can go into anaphylactic shock and die, if medical treatment is not immediately administered.
What insect kills the most people? The mosquito, Heydon said, or more specifically, the malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae, which kills a million people a year, primarily in Africa.
The Arcade students also learned how insects compare to the human body. For example, the insect counterpart of the human nose is the antennae.
Asked one youth: “Do you have any snakes?”
No, tour guide WilliamYuen told him. “This is an insect museum, but snakes are cool.”
Heydon later said that “we get that question often. Most kids kind of lump snakes and insects in the same vermin category.”
At the end of the tour, UC Davis doctoral student of entomology Fran Keller presented Cabinet Secretary Dunmoyer with a framed copy of the California dogface butterfly, the state insect, to give to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Dunmoyer said he would give the “beautiful framed picture” to the governor next week when he returns to Sacramento from his vacation.
“We hope this sparks interest in our state insect and conservation efforts,” said Fran Keller, a UC Davis doctoral student of entomology who designed the 18x24 poster. . “The dogface butterfly is found only in California, but it’s losing its natural habitat due to rapid California development.”
Bohart Museum volunteer Greg Kareofelas, a Davis naturalist and photographer, scanned the butterfly images for the poster
The California dogface butterfly, so named because of the poodle-like head silhouetted on the wings of the male butterfly, officially became the state insect in 1972. It appears on the pollination series stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service last year.
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| Tour guide William Yuen, UC Davis student. |
Sometimes called “a flying pansy,” the California dogface butterfly is rarely seen in the wild. The fast, high-flying butterfly is elusive except when it nectars on flowers, said internationally renowned butterfly expert Art Shapiro, a UC Davis professor of evolution and ecology who co-authored the newly published Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions with T. R. Manolis (UC Press, 2007).
“I’d say only one of every 10,000 Californians has ever seen the butterfly in the wild,” Shapiro said.
The poster is available for purchase from the Bohart Museum, 1124 Academic Surge; from the Web site or by telephoning the museum office at (530) 752-0493.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology, directed by Lynn Kimsey, interim chair of the Department of Entomology, draws some 6000 to 8000 visitors a year.
This summer will be especially busy, as the national libraries have adopted an insect theme, “Catch the Reading Bug.” Turner said he will make 21 site visits to area libraries, from Davis to Tahoe.
The Bohart Museum, dedicated to teaching, research and service, houses the seventh largest insect collection in North Americas. The global collection of some seven million insects focuses on terrestrial and fresh water invertebrates. The museum is the home of the California Insect Survey, showcasing the insect biodiversity of the state’s deserts, mountains, coast and central valley.
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--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
