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Pete Oboyski: Caretaker of 5 million bugs

Take a tour of the insect world with entomologist Pete Oboyski

By Public Affairs

A close up of a dead insect on display at the Essig Museum of Entomology
Credit: Manjula Varghese

April 10, 2019

Film by Manjula Varghese for the San Francisco Chronicle

UC Berkeley entomologist Pete Oboyski doesn’t mind if you call an insect a bug — as long as you genuinely know the difference.

Bugs, characterized by straw-like mouths used to stab plants or animals and suck out their juices, are merely a subset of insects, he says. So while all bugs are insects, not all insects are bugs.

As curator of the Essig Museum of Entomology at UC Berkeley, Oboyski is caretaker of an estimated 5 million insects. You can get a rare glimpse of this stunning collection of creatures on Saturday during Cal Day.

Read the full story in the San Francisco Chronicle