Bill Patterson, longtime butterfly collector and supporter of the University of California, Davis, is giving $1 million to the university’s R.M. Bohart Museum of Entomology to help maintain its permanent insect collection. This gift will provide the museum with the necessary financial security to support its ever-growing collection.
In 1946, the contents of two small, wooden boxes with about 200 insects helped create what would become the R.M. Bohart Museum of Entomology. Seventy-five years later, the museum now houses the seventh largest insect collection in North America featuring more than seven million specimens.
The R. M. Bohart Museum of Entomology founded in 1946, is located on the UC Davis campus. The museum is dedicated to teaching, research and service. We have the seventh largest insect collection in North America, which is worldwide in coverage. The collection holdings total more than seven million specimens, and focus on terrestrial and fresh water invertebrates. The museum is also home of the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity of California’s deserts, mountains, coast and great central valley.
