Shares
If you’re meandering around the UC Riverside campus and see a cockroach, it might have a connection to UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock.
This is a story of what might have been that never was and never will be and it all has to do with Hammock’s cockroaches.
Hammock, who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis department of entomology and nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, remembers the scenario well.
While on the UC Riverside faculty, he worked on two cultures of very large roaches. One was the wingless Madagascar hissing cockroach, Gromphadorhina portentosa, and the other, the South American cave cockroach, Blaberus giganteus with “lovely translucent wings.”
Program explains why ants are amazing
Support Local Journalism
“Ants are amazing because they’re way more diverse than most people realize,” said UC Davis entomology doctoral candidate Jill Oberski. “Some are huge, some are tiny, some are blue or green and a lot of them have crazy spines. There are ants that run farms with crops and livestock, and ants that can build bridges and survive floods and ants that live in the highest treetops and never touch the ground.”
That’s just some of the information to be showcased at the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Month program from 11 a.m. to noon Saturday, Feb. 13, when three doctoral students in the Phil Ward lab, UC Davis department of entomology and nematology, take the helm.
by Cody Kitaura
You can t miss it. And it s perfect for a “bear hug.”
Artist Solomon Bassoff and Bohart Museum director Lynn Kimsey stand by the tardigrade sculpture. (Photo courtesy of Solomon Basshoff)
The newly installed sculpture of a tardigrade, or water bear, promises not only to be a cuddly campus landmark but it may be the world s largest and only sculpture of its kind. It weighs 2,112 pounds and measures 6 feet long and nearly 3 feet high, whereas in real life, tardigrades are microscopic.
The sculpture, located in front of the Academic Surge, anchors the entrance to the Bohart Museum of Entomology, which houses one of the world s largest tardigrade collections.
Biodiversity Day this year is a whole month
2 minute read
Ernesto Sandoval of the UC Davis Botanical Conservatory answers questions from visitors at a Biodiversity Day. This year it will be a month and it will be virtual.
Kathy Keatley Garvey/Courtesy photo
Support Local Journalism
It will not be a day it will be a month, the month of February.
It will not be a walk-around event it will be virtual.
The UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day/Month, held throughout February, promises to be a lion of a program. This specimen is from the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology.
Search on for the first bumblebee of the year
3 minute read
The Bohart Museum of Entomology is sponsoring a two-county contest in memory of the late Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, to find the first bumblebee of the year in Solano and Yolo counties.
Kathy Keatley Garvey/Courtesy photo
Support Local Journalism
Be on the lookout for the first bumblebee of the year in Yolo and Solano counties.
In memory of native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, the Bohart Museum of Entomology is sponsoring the inaugural Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble-Bee-of-the-Year Contest.