We are currently open to members of the UC Davis and research communities who are vaccinated and/or have had a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours per UC Davis policy. We need to focus on training our new interns and safely greeting the new UC Davis students first before we can open to the general public. Our store is on-line and items can be shipped or picked up curbside on Friday mornings. Please contact us by email at bmuseum[at]ucdavis.edu.
Museum Happenings Announcing the Bohart Museum Society
|
|
|
|
Shop on-line for unique Bohart hoodies, t-shirts and more. Orders ship every Friday and, if you are local, we can arrange for curbside pick-up.
Tardigrade sculpture gets installed!
(Photo left to right is the artist Solomon Bassoff of Faducci LLC, and Lynn Kimsey, Bohart Museum Director. Photo courtesy of Solomon Bassoff.)
|
The water bear or tardigrade sculpture got installed in front the Bohart Museum of Entomology on February 4. It promises not only to be a cuddly campus landmark but it may be the world's largest—and only—sculpture of its kind. “I was so excited to see it on the truck,” said Kimsey, who launched the project via a GoFundMe account two years ago. “Looking at pictures is one thing but the real thing was awesome and its really fun to see it in front of the building. " For more information read: |
What is that bug?
When people send us photos of insects they can't identify, we are happy to help. Here are some resources to help in that process.
Read more about insects!
Need some good reading about arthropods and the people who study them, plus amazing backyard photos of insects? Kathy Keatley Garvey, our department's communications guru, has faithfully maintained this great blog about all things insects.
Need some good reading about arthropods and the people who study them, plus amazing backyard photos of insects? Kathy Keatley Garvey, our department's communications guru, has faithfully maintained this great blog about all things insects.
WATCH these 5 minute nature videos
Deep Look a series of on-line videos from KQED, the public broadcasting system in San Francisco. Some favorite titles that stem from UC Davis are:
"A Tse-tse fly births one enormous milk-fed baby" (with the UC Davis Attardo Lab)
"This dangerous mosquito lays her armored eggs - in your house" (with the UC Davis Attardo Lab)
"Watch this bee build her bee-jeweled nest" (with the UC Davis Williams Lab)
Deep Look a series of on-line videos from KQED, the public broadcasting system in San Francisco. Some favorite titles that stem from UC Davis are:
"A Tse-tse fly births one enormous milk-fed baby" (with the UC Davis Attardo Lab)
"This dangerous mosquito lays her armored eggs - in your house" (with the UC Davis Attardo Lab)
"Watch this bee build her bee-jeweled nest" (with the UC Davis Williams Lab)
The pre-recorded videos about organisms or topics related to museums and biodiversity can still be enjoyed here at biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu
Click to set custom HTML
News
Tiny beetles in your pantry
Over the past few weeks there have been numerous phone calls and emails to the Bohart regarding tiny beetles inside people's homes in west Davis and parts of Woodland. Samples of the beetles were identified by colleagues at the California Department of Food and Agriculture as Tribolium castaneum, or red flour beetles. These 3 millimeter long beetles are harmless other than their affinity for our grains, flours, rice and cereals. There is "no need to panic" and spraying pesticides is not recommended. Watch this short "public service" announcement (2:10 minutes) featuring Professor Lynn Kimsey about these beetles and what to do if find them in your home.
For more information, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UCANR) has a useful page on pantry pests: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/QT/pantrypestscard.html
Delta field work underway
|
|
|
Images courtesy of Brennen Dyer.
The California Delta is the largest freshwater marsh on the western coast of North America. All the water of most of California’s large rivers, the American, Sacramento, Feather, San Joaquin, Mokelumne, and Tuolumne Rivers to name a few, drain through the Delta on its way to the sea. The marsh is a consequence of the flatness of the central part of the Central Valley and the narrowness of the channel through the Carquinez Straight that the water must use to get through to the San Francisco Bay and the ocean.
The central location of the Delta, combined with the flat land and the abundant water, made this region an early target for conversion into agriculture. The heart of the marshes were diked off, the land inside the dikes drained, and the land converted to agriculture. Now, after more than 100 years, some of this land is being converted back to a more natural state.
The big question in any such reclamation efforts is are you recreating a natural habitat or just a garden. In other words are native species recolonizing the native plants that you are planting. The Bohart Museum is involved with the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology here at UC Davis to evaluate the rehabilitation efforts in the Delta.
Last year we surveyed the insects at 11 different sites using mass trapping techniques such as pitfall traps that collect crawling arthropods, blue vane traps to collect bees, and Malaise traps that capture flying insects. We just began our second season of work and will focus this year on collecting certain kinds of insects that were missed last year. We will be running light traps to collect nocturnal insects and yellow pan traps that will collect aphids and certain kinds of wasps. In addition, we will be collecting aquatic insects and insects that we see in the environment such as butterflies, dragonflies and bees.
The central location of the Delta, combined with the flat land and the abundant water, made this region an early target for conversion into agriculture. The heart of the marshes were diked off, the land inside the dikes drained, and the land converted to agriculture. Now, after more than 100 years, some of this land is being converted back to a more natural state.
The big question in any such reclamation efforts is are you recreating a natural habitat or just a garden. In other words are native species recolonizing the native plants that you are planting. The Bohart Museum is involved with the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology here at UC Davis to evaluate the rehabilitation efforts in the Delta.
Last year we surveyed the insects at 11 different sites using mass trapping techniques such as pitfall traps that collect crawling arthropods, blue vane traps to collect bees, and Malaise traps that capture flying insects. We just began our second season of work and will focus this year on collecting certain kinds of insects that were missed last year. We will be running light traps to collect nocturnal insects and yellow pan traps that will collect aphids and certain kinds of wasps. In addition, we will be collecting aquatic insects and insects that we see in the environment such as butterflies, dragonflies and bees.
Welcome Video with Director Lynn Kimsey
