Bugs at the Bohart

When the Bohart Museum Society throws a Halloween party, you can bet bugs will be there.

In costume.

Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, located at 1124 Academic Surge on California Drive, UC Davis campus, knows that a Halloween party isn't a party without the appropriate butterfly, ladybug and honey bee costumes.

After all, the museum houses a global collection of more than seven million specimens (and some live insects, including Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas).

The Bohart Museum Society party, held tonight (Thursday), drew scores of costumed folks who enjoyed the camaraderie, the refreshments, the gift shop, the specimens and the "live petting zoo." Toward the end, they took time to bash a mosquito pinata, made by Brittany Nelms, a PhD student within the Entomology Graduate Group with a designated emphasis in Vectorborne Diseases.  William Reisen of the Center for Vectorborne Diseases, serves as her major professor.

Mosquitoes are meant to be bashed.

UC Davis entomology graduate student Emily Bzdyk arrived as a butterfly, with her face intricately painted. Entomology graduate student Danielle Wishon, who studies with forensic entomologist Bob Kimsey and won the 2011 UC Davis Undergraduate Award in Entomology, selected a maggot theme.

Noted insect photographer Tom Roach of Lincoln dressed as a cuddly bug, complete with red buggy glasses and spider epaulets. Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, attired as himself on a collecting trip, carried an insect net filled with stuffed toy animals (bees) and called them "undescribed species."

Forensic entomologist Bob Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology dressed in a ghillie suit.  And his wife, Lynn, the museum director and professor of entomology? She followed through with an Alcatraz theme (Bob does fly research on Alcatraz and is known as the "Fly Man of Alcatraz.")

When it was all over, Honey Lovers candy donated by Gimbal's Fine Candies of San Francisco, spilled out of the split mosquito pinata as the eager crowd dashed for the goodies.

On Sunday, Oct. 30, the Bohart Museum will host a free pre-Halloween open house for the public. It will take place from 1 to 4 p.m. Prizes will be awarded to the best insect costumes (youth and adult divisions) and the best insect tattoo.

And, oh, yes, there will be another blood-sucking mosquito to bash in the form of a pinata.