Worried about uninvited guests gathering in your home without an invitation or your permission?
You know, the ones with six, eight or more legs?
Now you can find out all about them. And maybe, just maybe, you can kick them out.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology will host an open house, “Uninvited Guests: Common Pests Found in the Home” from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 19 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. The family friendly event is free and open to the public. A children's arts and crafts activity, zeroing in on uninvited guests in the home, will also take place.
“People attending can bring samples of anything they find in their pantries or their closets,” said Tabatha Yang, education and public outreach coordinator.
The pests can include cockroaches, carpet beetles, termites, flies/fruit flies, cellar spiders, earwigs, house centipedes, and pantry pests, such as moths and beetles that invade flour and cornmeal.
“We are not addressing the parasites,” she said. “We have a special day for that on Jan. 22 when the theme is “Parasite Palooza: Botflies, Fleas and Mites, Oh My!”
Ever wondered about those pantry pests with such names as confused flour beetle (Tribolium confusum) and cigarette beetle (Lasioderma serricorne)? You may be as confused as the flour beetle as how to get rid of it. And you probably don't allow cigarettes in your house, so why do you allow the cigarette beetle? (Read more about pantry pests on the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) website.
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis professor of entomology, is a world-renowned insect museum that houses a global collection of nearly eight million specimens. It also maintains a live “petting zoo,” featuring walking sticks, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and tarantulas. A gift shop, open year around, includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy. Other items include stuffed animals: monarchs, lice, mosquitoes and tardigrades.
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 bmuseum@ucdavis.edu. The website is http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/