Jewel Wasps Featured in Open House at Bohart Museum

By Kathy Keatley Garvey

DAVIS--Due to popular demand, the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, will offer “Parasitoid Palooza II” at its open house from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 10 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus.

Senior museum scientist Steve Heydon will give a 15-minute presentation on parasitoids and the group that the studies--the jewel wasps (Pteromalidae) from 2 to 2:15. He is a global expert on jewel wasps.

The event is free and open to the public. A family arts and crafts activity is also planned.

“An insect parasitoid is a species whose immatures live off of an insect host, often eating it from the inside out,” said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. “It is part of their life cycle and the host generally dies. This sounds like a weird way to make a living, but there are more species of parasitoids than there are insects with any other kind of life history.”

Wasps, flies and beetles are parasitoids to many different insect groups. Another group of parasitoids that will be highlighted will be the Strepsiptera, or twisted-wing parasites, an order of insects that the late UC Davis entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007), for whom the museum is named, researched for his doctorate in 1938. An entire family of Strepsiptera, the Bohartillidae, is named in honor of Professor Bohart.

The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It is also the home of the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum.

Special attractions include a “live” petting zoo, featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and a rose-haired tarantula named “Peaches.” Visitors are invited to hold the insects and photograph them.

The museum’s gift shop, open year around, includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.

The Bohart Museum’s regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. The museum is closed to the public on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and on major holidays. Admission is free.

More information on the Bohart Museum is available by contacting (530) 752-0493 or emailbmuseum@ucdavis.edu.

Image of a wasp parasitizing aphids. These wasps are from the family Aphidiinae. (Photo by Fran Keller)