Richard Bohart, who played football for the University of California Golden Bears in the 1930s, cast an equally imposing figure as an entomology professor at UC Davis, recalls Lynn Kimsey, a Bohart protégé who now teaches entomology at Davis.

"Everyone was convinced that he ate undergraduates for breakfast," said Kimsey, who studied under Bohart as an undergraduate and graduate, and served as a teaching assistant for his systematics class.

"Even though we all viewed Doc with awe and fear, his enthusiasm is what got me hooked on wasp taxonomy," Kimsey said. "I didn't really have a specific group that I was interested in until I met him."

"All of his students went on to be quite successful," They dominated the field for a generation."

Kimsey is director of UC Davis' Bohart Museum of Entomology, named after her mentor.

Bohart retired in 1979 after a 33-year career at Davis. During this time, he established himself as one of the world's leading experts on wasps and mosquitoes. He identified more than 1 million of these insects, many of which are in the Bohart museum, and wrote 230 published articles, as well as six books on wasps and mosquitoes.

In recognition of Bohart's work, the International Society of Hymenopterists recently awarded him its Distinguished Research Medal. A hymenopterist specializes in Hymenoptera, the insect order that includes wasps, mosquitoes, bees and ants.

The May 15 award ceremony and reception in Briggs Hall, home of the Department of Entomology, drew more than 50 of Bohart's former students and colleagues from throughout the United States.

'Always there when needed'

Retired entomologist Paul Marsh of North Newton, Kan., who studied under Bohart beginning in 1957, said he was "extremely grateful for his influence on my career and his training and encouragement during my student days at Davis."

Marsh said Bohart's first love was wasps, and his second love was students. "He was always there when we needed advice or direction and always had words of encouragement when needed. No other professor in my college days had this combination of love for insects and for the students as did Dick."

Bohart lived in Davis until a few years ago. He now lives in Hercules, Contra Costa County, with his wife, Elizabeth Arias. Bohart and his first wife, Margaret, who died in 1994, established the Richard and Margaret Bohart Endowment Fund to support the entomology museum.

Bohart gratefully received the medal, and quipped that the ceremony's invitation included a 4-decade-old photo that did not look much like him.

He delighted in meeting his former students and colleagues. "Dick recognized faces and who they were, but couldn't remember all the names," said Robert Washino, chair of the Department of Entomology, who co-authored three editions of Mosquitoes of California with Bohart.

"He saw me and said, 'Washino, Washino!' "

James M. Carpenter, curator of hymenoptera at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, wrote a letter to nominate Bohart for the research medal. "His combination of publications (both quantity and quality), collection building, and student training (many of whom are distinguished scholars; leading scientists in their own right) is unsurpassed among the world's leading hymenopterists of the last century," Carpenter wrote.

Bohart received three degrees in entomology, in-cluding his doctorate in 1938, from UC Berkeley.