Bohart Museum Open House: Entomology Fundamentals

It was an entomologist's dream and a learning experience for non-entomologists.

UC Davis doctoral alumna Fran Keller, a professor at Folsom Lake College and a lecturer in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, showed collecting equipment, shared entomological knowledge, and emphasized the importance of insect collections when she staffed a station at the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on Saturday, Sept. 28. 

The open house, themed  "Museum Fundamentals 101" or "Museum ABCs: Arthropods, Bohart and Collecting," drew some 300 visitors, ranging from toddlers to senior citizens. Displays lined the Bohart Museum and the hallway of the Academic Surge Building.

Keller, a longtime Bohart research associate, fielded scores of questions and discussed how to use the collecting equipment on her table. She holds a doctorate in entomology (2013) from UC Davis, studying with major professor Lynn Kimsey,  now a UC Davis distinguished professor emerita and a recently retired 34-year director of the Bohart Museum. 

"The Bohart Museum Insect collection,  with insects from all over the world, is a natural history library and the entomologists and collectors who have contributed, and continue to contribute, specimens to the collection are the documentarians of the insect diversity over time and from across the globe," Keller told the crowd.

"The Bohart insect library collection is priceless and provides a look into the ecosystems of the past while also providing an example of how habitat loss reduces or potentially wipes out the insect diversity in an area," Keller said. "Insect museum collections are just as important and valuable as history and art collections, but instead of cultural history, they document the natural history of not only our backyards, but also the natural history of our planet. Insects play an important role in every habitat."

Keller related that Richard "Doc" Bohart (2013-2007) founded the UC Davis insect museum in 1946, and served as its first director. It was renamed the Bohart Museum in 1983. Kimsey served as the second director, from 1999 to Feb. 1, 2024. Although retired, she  continues her research and also directs the Bohart Museum Society and writes and edits the quarterly newsletter.

"Lynn Kimsey added to and maintained the collection to what it is now, with approximately 8 million specimens," Keller said. "She brought the Bohart Museum collection to the public and made people aware of the diversity of insects through her teaching, research and continuing outreach programs. I am very fortunate to have trained and worked under Lynn."

"And," Keller said, "when Lynn retired earlier this year, Dr. Jason Bond became the newest director of the Bohart Museum insect collection, and he is just as passionate as the former directors about collections-based research, growing and maintaining the collection, continuing insect outreach programs, and documenting arthropod biodiversity." 

Bond is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. 

Curious visitors asked Keller about the contents of a jar on her table.  "A sample from a bucket ultraviolet (UV) light trap from our last trip to Belize in June (2024)," she told them. The insects in the jar "number in the thousands," said Keller, adding "I could not collect that many insects with just a net by myself in one day.  But by using multiple techniques, active and passive, we can come closer to assessing how healthy an ecosystem is and document the insect diversity for that ecosystem."

She and colleague Dave Wyatt, a biology professor at Sacramento City College, lead collecting trips to Belize or what are known as "The Belize Insect Bioblitz" trips, benefitting the Bohart Museum.

Keller displayed multiple collection equipment: an insect net; pitall traps, the cups and the boards; an aquatic D-net; a flight intercept trap; a UV blacklight bucket trap using LED lights powered by a small car battery; and a tennis racquet modified into an insect net. Keller told the visitors that they can make an inexpensive insect net by picking up an old tennis racket at a thrift store.

Keller also displayed a smoker "used to subdue honey bees in their hive or colony" and two bee vacuums to scoop up bees and other insects. Behind her, an image of a malaise trap also drew attention.

"The pitfall traps garnered the most question," Keller said. "People asked what they were and how they worked and what you put in them."

Emphasizing that "the Bohart Museum collection is a library of diversity and a snapshot in time of what insects were present in a particular area and then collected and ascended into the collection," Keller noted that the Bohart includes insect specimens from the once-thriving-now-underwater town of Monticello, covered by Lake Berryessa.  The dam project began in 1953 and concluded in 1957.  "Vegetation in the valley was chopped down, fences torn down and buildings demolished down to their foundations," according to Wikipedia. 

"As we take over more natural habitat," Keller said, "the Bohart collection holds that knowledge of what was once there and may now be lost."

Following her presentations, Keller directed the open house visitors to the next table where UC Davis students Allen Chew and Oliver Smith were pinning specimens. 

In reflecting on the open house activities, Keller commented:  "The collecting equipment was a nice start to the open house tour of the museum, so to speak. We talked about collecting, then visitors saw the pinning and curating of specimens and then they were able to go into the compactors and see the collection as the final product with the insects in the drawers."

Scientists, students and volunteers staffed the open house. Kimsey and retired Bohart senior museum scientist Steve Heydon detailed the process of identifying and labeling insect specimens. Jeff Smith, curator of the Lepidoptera collection and Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas showed visitors drawers of butterfly and moth specimens.  Smith crafts the drawers from redwood and pine.

The hallway, too, buzzed with activities:

• Doctoral candidate Christofer Brothers showed the techniques of netting insects, using paper butterflies
• UC Davis student Sam Amelia McCullough demonstrated how to use microscopes
• Doctoral student Carla-Cristina “CC” Melo Edwards of the laboratory of medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, discussed mosquitoes and ticks -and how she traps them.
• UC Davis student Julianna Campos covered the topic of kill jars
• UC Davis students Oliver Blunt, Jason Ni and Nancy Lauerman showed visitors the live petting zoo, which included Madagascar hissing cockroaches and stick insects. 

The open house concluded with a birthday cake celebrating the life and accomplishments of "Doc" Bohart. He would have been 111 years old on Sept. 28, the date of the open house. (See video created by Kimsey and UC Davis distinguished professor Walter Leal at https://youtu.be/3YqnK-CpbJE.)

The Bohart Museum is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus.  In addition to the petting zoo, it includes an insect-themed gift shop stocked with t-shirts, hoodies, books, posters and jewelry, among other items.