Curator Jeff Smith: Spreading the Wings of Butterflies

Jeff Smith with a tiger moth specimen, Ctenucha rubroscapus, from California coastal areas. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

It's not as easy as it looks, but entomologist Jeff Smith, curator of the Bohart Museum of Entomology's Lepidoptera collection, makes it look easy.

If you attend the Bohart Museum open house, set from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 28 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus, you'll learn how he does it.

Indeed, it is no easy feat to pin a butterfly or moth. Just ask research entomologist Tom Zavorink, a Bohart Museum associate.

"Personally, I am astounded by the thousands upon thousands of butterflies and moths that Jeff has prepared for display or scientific study," Zavorink told us back in 2015, when the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences selected Smith for its Friend of the College Award.

"This is no small task," Zavortink said, "because butterfly and moth specimens are usually brought from the field in envelopes or boxes with their wings folded over their backs or around their bodies, and preparing them for display or scientific study involves relaxing them in a humid chamber so their wings and legs can be manipulated, carefully spreading open the wings, positioning them on a flat surface, and securing them in that position until the specimen dries again. This is an onerous task that many entomologists, myself included, shun because we don't have the time, manual dexterity, or patience it takes to prepare quality specimens."

Assorted insects ready to be curated. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A Bohart volunteer since 1998,  Smith has spread the wings of some 180,000 moths and butterflies, typically 6,000 or more each year for the past 30-plus years. He has crafted and donated some 2,475 wooden specimen drawers, including 110 so far this year.  He also has donated some 100,000 specimens (primarily butterflies, moths but a few other insects, including beetles) to the Bohart Museum.  

The Lepidoptera collection now totals about 750,000 specimens. Lately Smith has been redoing the header labels in the unit trays for much of the Lepidoptera collection, "making the new ones in the better format where the geographic ranges of the various species and subspecies are on the label. This is so helpful when it comes to placing new material into the collection." 

When Smith received the Friend of the College award, Bohart director Lynn Kimsey, now UC Davis distinguished professor emerita, said: “You could not ask for a better friend than Jeff Smith. He  has brought us international acclaim and saved us $160,000 through donations of specimens and materials, identification skills and his professional woodworking skills. This does not include the thousands of hours he has donated in outreach programs that draw attention to the museum, the college and the university.”

“When Jeff was working for Univar Environmental Services, a 35-year career until his retirement in 2013, he would spend some of his vacation days at the museum. Over the years Jeff took over more and more of the curation of the butterfly and moth collection. He took home literally thousands of field pinned specimens and spread their wings at home, bringing them back to the museum perfectly mounted."

Smith engages in public outreach at the Bohart Museum's open houses, which include open houses with various themes, plus UC Davis Picnic Day, UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, and Take-Your-Daughters-and-Sons-to-Work Day. In addition, Smith annually presents an evening spreading class to the UC Davis Entomology Club as well as an annual presentation to Bio Boot Camp. He also speaks at 12 to 15 other venues per year, engaging students at School Science Days and in individual classrooms.

Jeff Smith, curator of the Bohart Museum's Lepidoptera collection, holds a drawer of monarch butterflies. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

"We will have an overview of terrestrial arthropods which encompasses everything from insects, arachnids, millipedes, isopods and centipedes," said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordination. "We will also showcase some of the trapping/catching methods we use, for example, nets, lights, pitfall traps and malaise traps." 

"We also get asked a lot of questions about our own collection and why the specimens don't decay," she added.  "We will highlight the different curation techniques from pinning, point mounting, preserving in alcohol and mounting on slides."

Also planned is a tribute to the late UC Davis professor Richard "Doc" Bohart (1913-2007), who founded the insect museum in 1946, served as the first director, and compiled 32 years on the UC Davis entomology faculty,   Sept. 28 is his birthday anniversary and a cake to celebrate what would have been his 111th birthday will be served.

Kimsey, his last graduate student, remembers him in the audio of a newly produced video by Walter Leal, UC Davis distinguished professor of molecular and cellular biology and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. Kimsey provides the narrative and images. Leal added excerpts from a 1996 Aggie Video production when Kimsey interviewed Bohart. (See https://youtu.be/3YqnK-CpbJE)

The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens. It also is the home of a petting zoo (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks, tarantulas and more) and an insect-themed gift shop, stocked with t-shirts,hoodies, books, posters,jewelry, stuffed animals, and insect collecting equipment.Museum director is professor and arachnologist Jason Bond,  the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and  associate dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

For more information, contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.