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Bugs Will Rule at UC Davis Picnic Day
Bugs will rule at the 99th annual UC Davis Picnic Day this Saturday, April 20.
The UC Davis Department of Entomology is planning lots of "bug" activities as part of the campuswide celebration.
Visitors to Briggs Hall and the Bohart Museum of Entomology will find much to do and see from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey, coordinator of the department’s Picnic Day activities, says there will be cockroach races, termite trails, ant colonies, Maggot Art, face-painting, fly-tying, honey tasting, T-shirt sales, and much, much more at Briggs Hall.
Briggs is located off Kleiber Hall drive, near the campus police and fire stations, while the Bohart Museum is in Room 1124 Academic Surge on Crocker Lane.
The Bohart Museum, home of nearly eight million insect specimens, will feature wasp nests in its new display case. Displayed will be nests once occupied by European paper wasps, yellow jackets, carpenter bees and bumble bees. The Bohart also will include a live “petting zoo” where visitors can hold Madagascar hissing cockroaches, a rose-haired tarantula, and walking sticks. Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology, directs the Bohart Museum.
At Briggs, you can also expect to see forensic, medical, aquatic, apiculture, and forest entomology displays, as well as a honey of a honey tasting. In the courtyard, Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen will share six varieties of honey: manzanita, lima bean, pomegranate, almond blossom, orange blossom, and Northern desert shrub Nevada), a reddish honey. In Room 122, staff research associate/beekeeper Billy Synk of the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility will provide a bee observation hive.
One of the most popular activities at Briggs is Maggot Art, a term trademarked by forensic entomologist Rebecca O’Flaherty, a former doctoral candidate in entomology at UC Davis. This involves dipping a maggot in non-toxic, water-based paint. “Artists” pick up a maggot with special forceps, dip it in the paint and then let it crawl on white paper. O’Flaherty launched Maggot Art in 2001 at the University of Hawaii as a community outreach project when she was teaching entomology to youths.
The UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) will set up its traditional display in front of Briggs Hall where visitors can learn about managing pests in their homes and garden. In addition, UC IPM will give away live lady beetles (aka ladybugs) to children.
Plans at Briggs Hall also call for a “Bug Doctor” to answer insect-related questions. The doctor is in! Last year’s “Bug Doctors” included Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
So, bugs will rule!
Briggs Hall is a popular place to be on UC Davis Picnic Day. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Visitors will flock to the Bohart Museum of Entomology. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Principal editor/entomologist Steve Dreistadt of UC IPM explains insects to visitors. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Outstanding Entomologist
She delighted in the insects on her parents' rose buses--the aphids, the ladybugs, grasshoppers and the caterpillars.
“I would trap those in containers and I kept my tiny companions underneath the bed where I could easily take them out for play and also hide them away from my mother," she recalled. "I knew I liked insects.”
But credit a cricket named Chester with really getting her into entomology.
Chester? He's the main character in George Selden's Newbery award-winning book, A Cricket in Times Square.
Young Ivana encountered the book in the second grade and learned the definition of "entomologist."
"I was pretty thrilled that to find out that there was actually a job in which you get to study insects," related Li, who was born and reared in Monterey Park, near east Los Angeles. "That was the best. It still is.”
After graduating from Schurr High School in Montebello, Li enrolled as an entomology major at UC Davis. Now a fourth-year entomology major and president of the UC Davis Entomology Club, she was just announced as the recipient of the Department of Entomology’s 2012 Outstanding Undergraduate Award.
And well deserved!
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey presented her with the coveted award at a recent departmental barbecue. A perpetual plaque, displayed outside the department's administration office on the third floor of Briggs Hall, now bears her name.
Ivana Li does love bugs! When she's not in class, you'll find her working in the Bohart Museum of Entomology, home of more than seven million insect specimens.
Said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology: “Ivana has worked for me for several years. She is a gifted student with many impressive talents, and a maturity well beyond that of her peers. She will go far.”
As for career choices, Ivana Li hasn't’ decided yet, but it will be either “forensics or ecology.”
“Both,” she said, “are appealing at this point in my life.”
Ivana Li with a walking stick. (Photo by Fran Keller, Bohart Museum of Entomology)
They'll Light Up Your Life
Most scorpions glow under an ultraviolet light, but now a discovery on Alcatraz Island reveals that a certain species of millipedes will, too.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, who does fly research on Alcatraz, said that bait laced with a non-toxic fluorescent dye to estimate the rat population in February yielded the expected result: the glow of rat urine and feces.
But something else was glowing nearby: millipedes.
Had they consumed some of the rat bait?
No. An experiment at the Bohart Museum of Entomology on the UC Davis campus showed that these millipedes (Xystocheir dissecta (Wood) glow under black lights, just like scorpions.
Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a professor of entomology at UC Davis, said the species is a relatively abundant species in the Bay Area. “This particular species of millipedes glowed all along, but nobody was paying any attention to it,” she said.
She suspects that the millipedes on Alcatraz Island originated from soil transported over from the nearby Angel Island when “The Rock” was just that—rock with little or no soil.
Meanwhile, if you attend the Bohart Museum's open house from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, June 3 at 1124 Academic Surge, California Drive, you'll see scorpions and millipedes glowing.
And there's something else to draw you in: a special live display of the California dogface butterfly by naturalist/photographer Greg Kareofelas of Davis. If all goes as planned, an adult will emerge from its chrysalis. If this doesn't happen (well, you can't tell a buttterfly when to emerge!) you can watch the life cycle on his PowerPoint presentation, to run continuously throughout the open house.
And, you can ask Kareofelas all about the California dogface butterfly (Zerene eurydice), which, by the way, is close to royalty--it's California's designated state insect.
This millipede (Xystocheir dissecta) glows under ultraviolet light. Alexander Nguyen of the UC Davis Entomology Club captured this image on Alcatraz, during one of UC Davis forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey's field trips.
Is There a Doctor in the House?
If you head over to the UC Davis Department of Entomology's displays at Briggs Hall and at the Bohart Museum of Entomology on Saturday, April 21 during the campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day, you'll find them.
Bug doctors. Lots of them. They'll be there from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey will be behind a sign that says "Dr. Death" in Room 122 of Briggs Hall. (Briggs is located off Kleiber Hall Drive.) There you can ask him all kinds of questions about forensic entomology and he'll let you peer through his microscope. Ask him about CSI!
Out in front of Briggs Hall will be a "Bug Doctor" booth where you can "bug" the experts about bugs. Entomology faculty and graduate students will rotate shifts.
The UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) will have a team of experts at Briggs, too, to answer all sorts of questions. "We will do our usual display of information and tools for managing pests in homes and gardens," said Mary Louise Flint, the UC IPM's associate director of urban and community IPM and an Extension entomologist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology. "We'll give advice on managing pests with less toxic, environmentally sound IPM methods. We will have Quick Tips to hand out, people can try out our touch screen IPM kiosk to answer questions and we will also be distributing live lady beetles (aka ladybugs) for children."
Over at the Bohart Museum in Room 1124 of Academic Surge on California Drive, you'll meet the team of bug experts headed by director Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology. You can examine the specimens (there are more than seven million housed in the museum) and they'll even let you hold the critters in their live "petting zoo" which includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches and walking sticks.
Yes, there will be doctors in the house, but you know what? They will be far, far outnumbered by insects. (See the UC Davis Department of Entomology website for the full list of activities.)
Bug banner at Briggs beckons. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey as "Dr. Death." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Entomologist/principal editor Steve Dreistadt (red shirt) of UC IPM answers questions about insects. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Maggots and Termites and Cockroaches, Oh My!
And ants, honey bees, bumble bees, beetles, and skeeters, oh yes!
Don't see "Ewww!" Say "Wow!"
Those are just a few of the bugs that will be part of the UC Davis Department of Entomology's activities during the 98th annual campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day on Saturday, April 21.
Entomological activities will take place at two sites: Briggs Hall on Kleiber Hall Drive and the Bohart Museum of Entomology, located at 1124 Academic Surge on California Drive. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey, coordinator of the department’s Picnic Day activities, promises not to disappoint. Indeed, thousands of people flock to the Bohart and Briggs every year just to see the bugs. What's a picnic without bugs? Bohart, Briggs and bugs. Now that's alliteration.
At Briggs, the popular events will include Maggot Art, termite trails, cockroach races and honey tasting, as well as displays featuring forensic, medical, aquatic, apiculture and forest entomology. Exhibits also will include such topics as fly fishing/fly-tying, insect pests of ornamentals, and pollinators of California.
Visitors to Briggs can cheer for their favorite cockroach at the American cockroach races; watch a termite follow a line drawn with a Bic ink pen (they follow the line because the ink acts as a pheromone or attractant) and create a Maggot Art painting suitable for framing.
Maggot Art, a term coined and trademarked by forensic entomologist Rebecca O’Flaherty, a former doctoral candidate at UC Davis, involves dipping a maggot in non-toxic, water-based paint to create art. O’Flaherty launched Maggot Art in 2001 as a community outreach project to teach--and reach--youths while she was studying entomology at the University of Hawaii.
At Briggs, the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) will "display information and tools for managing pests in homes and gardens," said Mary Louise Flint, UC IPM's associate director of urban and community IPM and an Extension entomologist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology. "We'll give advice on managing pests with less toxic, environmentally sound IPM methods. We will have Quick Tips to hand out, people can try out our touch screen IPM kiosk to answer questions and we will also be distributing live lady beetles (aka ladybugs) for children."
Those polka-dotted ladybugs are a big hit--and an even bigger hit if you watch them chow down aphids in your garden.
Also at Briggs, plans call for a “Bug Doctor” to answer insect-related questions from the public. Last year’s “Bug Doctors” included Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. There's another "doctor in the house," too: Dr. Death. That would be forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey perched at a microscope and inviting folks to have a look-see.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology, home of more than seven million insect specimens, will showcase displays of specimens and live pollinators. The theme: "Insects Are Forever." Bohart Museum officials insist that insects can be a girl’s best friend (just like diamonds or dung beetles). They'll feature photos of UC Davis women entomologists. The Bohart Museum also will include a live “petting zoo” where visitors can hold Madagascar hissing cockroaches and walking sticks.
Also at the Bohart, native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology, and graduate student Emily Bzdyk, who studies with major professor Lynn Kimsey, will provide a live display of pollinators, including bumble bees, carpenter bees, leafcutting bees and green metallic sweat bees.
Is this going to "bee" fun or what?
Perhaps, just perhaps, the entomologists can steer folks clear of saying "yecch!" and "ewww!" and encourage them to ponder the wonderful world of bugs.
Maggot Art involves maggots dipped into non-toxic, water-based paints. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A termite follows the "pheromone" or chemical attraction of a Bic pin. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
American cockroaches will compete in the cockroach races. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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