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Lynn Kimsey and Michael Parrella discuss the life of world-renowned entomologist Richard Bohart. (Photos by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
DAVIS—They came to honor a giant of a man, a giant in both stature and legacy.
More than 100 colleagues, former students and relatives gathered March 31 at the University Club to celebrate the life of world-renowned UC Davis entomologist Richard M. Bohart, who died Feb. 1 in Berkeley at age 93.
Bohart towered over fellow linebackers on the UC Berkeley football team in the mid-1930s and he towered over fellow entomologists during a 70-year career that spanned 31 years at UC Davis, said former graduate student Lynn Kimsey, today a professor of entomology and director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology on campus.
“Doc, as we called him, received the International Society of Hymenopterists Distinguished Research Medal, one of three ever awarded,” said Kimsey, who coordinated the memorial.
“All of his students went on to be quite successful,” she said. “They dominated the field for a generation.”
UC Davis entomologist Michael Parrella, associate dean of agricultural sciences at the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and a former chair of the entomology department, said Bohart made a tremendous impact in the world of entomology. “He transformed the very science of entomology,” Parrella said.
'We stood on the
shoulders of a giant.'
--Michael Parrella |
And, thanks primarily to Bohart, “the UC Davis Department of Entomology is one of the world’s top ranked entomology departments,” Parrella said. “We stood on the shoulders of a giant.”
Edward Ross, 92, curator emeritus of the Department of Entomology, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, described Bohart as “one of a kind.” Bohart’s brother, Ned, was also a great entomologist, he said.
“Dr. Bohart was like a father to me,” said former student David Katz of San Mateo, a 1977 entomology graduate who now tutors math students. Katz displayed a letter that Bohart wrote that paved his way to do research in Australia.
Bohart Museum senior scientist Steve Heydon praised Bohart’s passion for collecting insects, his keen knowledge and his trademark generosity. Bohart cherished every specimen brought to him, Heydon said, even if he had seen hundreds just like it.
“If you get to know someone like Dr. Bohart in your life,” Heydon said, “it’s a real treat.”
Fresno County entomologist Norman Smith, who received his doctorate in 1981 from UC Davis (and, along with Kimsey, was one of Bohart’s last graduate students), shared a story about Bohart’s silver-haired Persian cat, Miss Beau.
Smith and his wife, Mollie, then “starving students,” volunteered to house-sit for six months while Bohart and his wife, Margaret, went on sabbatical leave. Bohart spent his sabbaticals on entomological expeditions, visiting museums and collecting insects throughout the world.
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| Norman Smith talks about Miss Beau, Bohart's beloved cat. |
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| A photo taken in the 1980s. |
“We didn’t know that Miss Beau came with the house,” Smith said. “Like many Persians, Miss Beau had a nasty personality.”
Smith and his wife bathed and groomed her, but quickly learned that “Miss Beau did not like baths and she hated being combed.”
“I still have the scars to prove it,” Smith said.
In a Powerpoint presentation, entomology doctoral student Fran Keller chronicled Bohart’s 70 years of contributions to entomology. “He was a giant among hymenopterists (scientists who study insects that include bees, wasps and ants),” Keller said.
Bohart identified more than a million mosquitoes and wasps, named more than 300 new species of insects, authored 230 separate publications and wrote six books on mosquitoes and wasps, including three editions of Mosquitoes of California. An entire family of insects bears his name: Bohartillidae (twisted wing parasites), genus Bohartilla.
Bohart founded the Bohart Museum of Entomology in 1946, the same year he joined the UC Davis faculty. Today the teaching, research and public service facility houses the seventh largest insect collection in North America.
The UC Davis memorial included a photo display depicting Bohart’s life from childhood to retirement. A giant martini glass, filled with several green olives, anchored one end of the table. A badminton racquet and shuttlecock graced the other end.
Born Sept. 28, 1913 in Palo Alto, Richard Bohart received three degrees in entomology from UC Berkeley, including his doctorate in 1938. He taught at UCLA from 1938 to 1941, then served as an entomologist in the U.S. Navy Medical Corps from 1941-46. He advanced from ensign to lieutenant commander of the Pacific Area and Washington D.C.
“During this time, he worked on the mosquitoes of the Pacific area and produced comprehensive documents on the mosquito fauna of Japan and China,” recalled Robert Washino, emeritus professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. Washino and Bohart co-authored the third edition of Mosquitoes of California.
Bohart lived in Davis for more than three decades with wife, Margaret, who died in January 1994. They had no children. Several years ago he moved to Hercules, Contra Costa County, with his second wife, Elizabeth Arias.
“He found joy in each day,” Arias said at the memorial. |
