UC Davis entomologist Richard Bohart world-renowned for his expertise on wasps and mosquitoes, died Feb. 1 in a Berkeley hospital after a long illness. He was 93.

Funeral services are pending.

During his career, Bohart identified more than 1 million mosquitoes and wasps, many displayed at UC Davis' R.M. Bohart Museum of Entomology, a teaching, research and public service facility that he founded in 1946. He authored 230 separate publications and six books on mosquitoes and wasps.

In 2006, Bohart received the Inter-national Society of Hymenopterists Dis-tinguished Research Medal, one of three ever awarded. Hymenoptera is an order of insects that includes bees, wasps and ants.

Born Sept. 28, 1913, in Palo Alto, Bohart began collecting butterflies at age 7. He went on to study entomology at UC Berkeley, where he earned his doctorate in 1938.

He taught at UCLA and served in the Navy Medical Corps before joining the UC Davis faculty in 1946. He chaired the entomology department from 1956 to 1965 and retired in 1980.

Bohart spent his sabbaticals on entomological expeditions, visiting museums and collecting insects. In 1960 alone, he visited 21 museums in Europe and the eastern United States. His other expeditions took him to South Africa, South America and Australia.

"Dr. Bohart, or 'Doc' as all of his students knew him, is the reason most of us became entomologists," said UC Davis entomology professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum. "As graduate students we were all terrified of him and thought he ate undergraduates for breakfast. But he was generous, enthusiastic and provided us with all the support he could, even with 'funds' out of his own pocket. I owe my career in entomology to him — and my love of wasps."

She noted that many of Bohart's students advanced to leadership positions in both government and academia in the United States and abroad, dominating the field for a generation.

James Carpenter, curator of hymenoptera at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, described Bohart as a "giant among hymenopterists."

"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 noted.

Bohart lived in Davis for more than three decades with his wife, Margaret, who died in 1994. Several years ago he moved to Hercules, Contra Costa County, with his second wife, Elizabeth Arias.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by his sister-in-law and by two nieces, a nephew, and many grandnieces and grandnephews.