No Predation at Bohart Museum of Entomology's Pre-Halloween Party

Forensic entomologist Bob Kimsey wore his traditional ghillie suit to the Bohart Museum party. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The predators and their prey were all in costumes, of course:

• The queen bee: UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum
• The praying mantis: Tabatha Yang, 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 and Nematology) is keenly interested in flies, but he didn't net 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 Kimsey cut 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 Crocker Lane, 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 Nematology website)

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, Crocker Lane. This is an opportunity for attendees to ask questions about monarchs (Danaus plexippus) and native vs. non-native milkweed, among other topics.

The scientists will include:

• UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus Art 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 of Migration: The Biology of Life on the Move (Oxford University Press), a sequel to the first edition published in 1996. See news story on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.
  
  
• UC Davis professor Louie 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 story about his work.
  
  
• UC Davis professor Elizabeth Crone of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, formerly of Tufts University, who researches monarchs. See news story about the declining monarch population on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.
  
  
• UC Davis postdoctoral fellow Aramee Diethelm of the Elizabeth Crone 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 of milkweed (Asclepias) species across northern Nevada and the effects of this variation on western monarch (Danaus plexippus) butterfly performance. See her research posted on Google Scholar, and her blog on "Drought Influences Monarch Host Plant Selection."

Shapiro points 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 Bohart Museum, 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 Crocker Lane. For more information, access the website or email bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.