This UC Davis museum started with 400 bugs in two boxes and a Navy malaria fighter’s dream

Richard Bohart’s Journey from Bug Collector to Museum Founder

Richard Bohart first caught bugs at age 7 in Palo Alto, selling them for pocket change. Soon after, he earned three degrees from UC Berkeley, then joined the Navy when war broke out.

He fought malaria, not just enemies, in the Pacific. Back home in 1946, he started a tiny bug collection at UC Davis with just 400 specimens.

Over time, he grew this to a mind-boggling 7 million insects while writing 230 papers and six books.

The Bohart Museum of Entomology now stands as his living legacy, where you can see how one boy’s hobby changed our understanding of the insect world.

A 7-Year-Old Boy Started Selling Butterflies for Pocket Money

Richard Bohart fell in love with bugs as a kid. Born in Palo Alto in 1913, he started collecting butterflies at age 7 with his brother George “Ned.”

The boys hunted butterflies for fun and sold them to a local collector for spending money. They even planned to collect every butterfly type in California.

When not chasing insects, Richard played with clay, checked out pretty women, joined sports, and gathered fossils and rocks.

College Turned His Hobby Into Scientific Pursuit

Richard went to Berkeley for his education, getting three degrees in bug studies and finishing his doctorate in 1938.

His childhood butterfly hobby got serious after making an insect collection for a UC Berkeley field course. During school, Richard found something odd – a bee carrying a sack-like bug called a female Stylops.

He got so interested that he made these parasites the focus of his PhD work. Richard and brother George also played football for UC Berkeley.

His Front Yard Lawn Led to Published Research

Richard taught at UCLA from 1938 to 1941, starting his career in bug studies.

After getting married in 1939 and moving to West Los Angeles, he noticed sod webworms took over his front lawn. Instead of just killing the pests, he turned his yard into a study project.

This hands-on work led to several papers about sod pests. He had already started publishing earlier, with his first paper on Strepsiptera coming out in 1936.

War Called Him to Fight Mosquitoes Instead of Enemies

Richard joined the Navy Medical Corps in 1941 as lieutenant commander.

His path took a twist when the Army drafted him in November 1942, but he soon moved to the Navy Medical Corps as an ensign.

He taught troops at Camp LeJeune in North Carolina and Camp Perry in Virginia about malaria and mosquito control. By spring 1944, the Navy sent him to Washington, D.C. , putting him with Naval Medical Research Unit #2 at the National Academy of Sciences.

Pacific Islands Became His Outdoor Laboratory

Richard trained in Florida during 1944, studying mosquitoes for a month in Orlando and Tallahassee.

The Navy then sent him across the Pacific to Guam and later Okinawa, where he worked on malaria control in the war zone. Even after the fighting ended in 1945, Richard stayed in uniform to finish his mosquito research.

The Navy finally let him go in spring 1946 with the rank of lieutenant commander.

Two Small Boxes Grew Into Millions of Specimens

Richard started what became the Bohart Museum of Entomology in 1946, the same year he joined UC Davis faculty. The collection began small – just two boxes with about 500 bug specimens he collected.

Over the next 60 years, Richard helped grow this tiny collection into something huge.

Under his watch, the museum grew to hold 7 million specimens, with his own work focusing on flies, wasps, bees, and twisted-wing parasites.

Teaching Took Students From Classroom to Wilderness

Richard loved teaching at UC Davis. He started in 1946 and later led the Department of Entomology from 1956 to 1965.

He taught general bug studies, medical entomology, systematics, and agricultural entomology.

Students really enjoyed his summer field course, first taught at Tanbark Flat near Los Angeles, and later at Sagehen Creek Field Station near Lake Tahoe.

These field trips got students out of classrooms and into nature where bugs lived.

His Passport Got Stamped Chasing Bugs Worldwide

Richard traveled all over during his career, going on bug-hunting trips, visiting museums, and collecting insects across continents.

In 1960 alone, he looked at specimens in 21 museums throughout Europe and the eastern United States. His science trips took him to South Africa, South America, and Australia hunting for new specimens.

His wife Margaret joined many of these worldwide collecting trips, adding to the growing museum collection.

A Million Insects Passed Through His Hands

Richard’s work with bugs was massive – he identified more than a million mosquitoes and wasps in his career. He wrote 230 scientific papers and six books about mosquitoes and wasps.

His work with wasps, bees, and ants included two major books: “Sphecid Wasps of the World” and “The Chrysidid Wasps of the World. ” He named more than 200 new species and genera.

Other scientists even named an entire family of twisted-wing parasites after him: Bohartillidae, genus Bohartilla.

The World Noticed His Bug Expertise

Richard got lots of awards during his career. In 1951, he got a Pacific Science Fellowship to study mosquitoes in the Marianas and Ryukyus Islands.

The Guggenheim Foundation named him a Fellow in 1960, supporting his research.

The International Society of Hymenopterists gave him their Distinguished Research Medal in 2006, making him one of only three scientists ever to get this honor.

UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences gave him their Award of Distinction in 1997.

His Name Lives On Through Students and Specimens

Richard retired in 1980 after 34 years of teaching and research at UC Davis.

Three years later, Chancellor James Meyer dedicated the entomology museum in Richard’s name, officially renaming it the R. M. Bohart Museum in 1986.

His influence spread far beyond campus through the hundreds of students he mentored who went on to leadership positions in government and academia across the United States and around the world.

These students dominated the field for a generation.

Richard passed away on February 1, 2007, in Berkeley at age 93 after a long illness, but his scientific legacy continues through the museum that bears his name.

Visiting Bohart Museum of Entomology

The Bohart Museum of Entomology is in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building at 455 Crocker Lane on UC Davis campus. Admission is always free and you can visit Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 1 to 4:30 p.m.

The museum has a live petting zoo with Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas. Group tours cost extra and need advance booking at [email protected]. Weekend parking is free but weekdays require payment unless you have handicap placards.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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