Let's Go Mothing!

Let's go mothing!

The Bohart Museum of Entomology will host its annual Moth Night on Saturday, July 12 from 7 to 11 at its facility in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis, and on the grounds.

The event, free and family friendly, is in keeping with National Moth Week, set July 19-27, in celebration of the beauty, diversity, and ecological importance of moths.   

The Bohart open house will feature a blacklighting demonstration; scientists will hang a white sheet and an ultraviolet (UV) light to attract night-flying insects. 

In addition to the blacklighting, "We will have the moth collection, crafts, microscopes, live animals, catching moth demonstrations and some hornworm caterpillars for handling," said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator.

At the 2024 Moth Night blacklighting coordinator John "Moth Man" Benedictus, a Bohart research associate and retired UC Davis employee, reported seeing three species of moths:

• Pelochrista eburata, a tortricid moth (it has no common name)
• Platynota stultana, a tortricid known as the Omnivorous Leafroller Moth, and
• Ephestiodes gilvescentella, a pyralid moth known as the Dusky Raisin Moth.

Among the other insects attracted to the blacklight: "Numerous small flies, a couple of earwigs, a large longhorn beetle (probably Prionus californicus), and a few green lacewings," Benedictus said. He traditionally sets up the blacklighting display with retired senior museum associate Steve Heydon and Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas.

Jeff Smith, curator of the Bohart Museum's Lepidoptera collection, said he and Kareofelas will display moths from all over the world and answer questions. They will focus on moth defenses. "We plan to emphasize the amazing defenses moths and their caterpillars have to avoid their predators, such as bats, birds, and others that might eat them," Smith said.

"We probably have around a half million moths in the Bohart collection," he estimated. "We currently are incorporating another tens of thousands of butterflies, the remainder of the lifelong collection from Bill Patterson." A longtime butterfly collector and supporter of the Bohart Museum, Patterson and his wife, Doris Brown, gifted $1 million to the museum in 2022 to help maintain its permanent insect collection. 

The Bohart Museum, founded in 1946 by noted UC Davis entomologist and professor Richard Bohart (1913-2007), now houses a worldwide collection of 8 million insect specimens.    The museum also includes a live petting zoo (stick insects, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and more) and an insect-themed gift shop stocked with T-shirts, hoodies, books, posters, jewelry, pencils, candy, puppets, and insect-collecting equipment. 

 

Director of the Bohart Museum is Professor Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of Insect Systematics, Department of Entomology and Nematology. He is also associate dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.  UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emerita Lynn Kimsey,  a graduate student of "Doc" Bohart's, directed the. museum for 34 years. She retired in 2024 but continues her research on Hymenoptera, as well as writing  and publishing the Bohart Museum newsletter.

For more information, access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu/ or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.