Nobody knows exactly how many types of insects are in Nevada. But if anyone was qualified to take a guess, it would be Jeff Knight.

For nearly four decades, Knight served as the state entomologist, working with species ranging from Mormon crickets to Africanized bees to fire ants and bedbugs.

But on July 4, Knight, 70, who not only logged 35 years as entomologist but an additional decade working for the state in other capacities, stepped down from his role.

His job was wide ranging. Knight identified and surveyed insect pests that can harm agriculture and the state’s food supply to stop their introduction and spread. He taught continuing education classes to nursery workers, gardeners and others to educate them on home and garden pests. He managed the state’s insect collection, which serves as a record of native and invasive insect species in the state and their effects, and oversaw the state honeybee program — despite being allergic to bees.

“It’s always been [about] the diversity. You see new stuff every day,” he said. “I’ve seen just about every part of Nevada you can see from a paved road, and 90 percent or more you can see from a dirt road.”

Knight’s retirement leaves a gap in institutional knowledge at the department. According to state records, Knight was only the state’s third entomologist; his predecessor served for 36 years.

“His passion is infectious. And that passion really connects with people,” said Meghan Brown, administrator for the division of plant health and compliance and Knight’s supervisor. “There’s not a lot of people who can carry on with a fourth grader who comes into his collection or an agricultural producer having a problem with pests.”

‘I could sit down and identify insects all day’

Growing up in Washoe Valley, Knight recalls “chasing bugs.”

His family was supportive of his hobby, even though it was considered “a little weird.” As a kid, he participated in the local 4-H program; generally focused on agriculture, his group leader also supported his love of bugs.

“I can remember going to meetings and going and pinning insects together,” Knight said, describing the process by which bugs are mounted and preserved.

In college, he studied pest management at UNR, where he met his wife, Virginia; they will celebrate their 50th anniversary next year. 

In 1976, Knight started as a seasonal employee with the Department of Agriculture, then attended grad school in Utah before returning to UNR to take a job as an entomologist. He returned to the Department of Agriculture in 1985, and was named state entomologist in the early ‘90s.

Now, after decades in the position, his desk is buried with the tools of his trade — microscopes outnumber and outsize his computer, and jars of specimens are strewn across the desk. Shelves of reference books and binders line the walls.

Just two days before his last day in the office, his desk was covered with projects he hoped to finish — insects waiting to be pinned, a portion of the state’s collection that needed to be cleaned up after a moth nibbled the head off a beetle.

“This is as much a lab as it is an office,” he said.

Across the hall is the official laboratory. The room houses the thousands of bugs in the state’s collection and provides space for agricultural inspectors, seasonal entomology employees and others to work on species identification. On a recent Monday, three employees peered at specimens through microscopes as thousands of others, some housed in boxes, others in jars and sealed under glass, surrounded them.

One specimen, housed at the back of the room, has particular significance — Aegialia Knighti, a type of dung beetle.

Endemic to sand dunes in extreme Southern Nevada, Knight discovered the flightless insect in 1995 after sifting through the sand with metal screens.

“You get good arm muscles,” he joked.

Determined to be a new, previously unknown species of the beetle, the insect was later named after him.

Knight has helped grow the state’s collection to about 5,000 specimens — just a fraction of the estimated 20,000 to 30,000 insects thought to live in the state, although nobody really knows how many insects call Nevada home, Knight said.

The state collection also includes fossils of insects found in Nevada — some that Knight found near Gabbs date back 14.5 million years.

When he first took the job, building and maintaining the collection was a core component of his work. That shifted to include all the ancillary work, and, by the time he retired, he was only spending about an hour a day on identification and lab work though it was his favorite part of the job.

“All this other stuff, I think I did a good job at it,” he said, referring to the desk work, the teaching and the phone calls. “But this other stuff,” he paused to point at the collection of specimens in the lab — “I could sit down and identify insects all day.”

He knows not everyone shares his love of insects. When his son Brian, now in his mid-40s, was a kid, Knight recalls waking up to blood curdling screams because there was a spider in the shower.

Throughout his career, he tried to empathize with those who reached out to him for help with bug identification, or with how to deal with invasive pests. Sometimes, it was a challenge.

“You’ve got to understand, you’re talking to an entomologist,” he said. “A couple thousand big bugs running through my yard is no big deal — let them run through the yard.”

Leaving a big hole 

Knight has seemingly endless stories from his decades with the department. There was the time he got a call to hurry to the Diamond Valley airport (he was already out in eastern Nevada for work) because an elderly resident, upset that the department was conducting aerial spraying near his property, had gone down to the airport and punched a county employee.

Or the time he traveled to Las Vegas to deal with a bedbug infestation — hotel staff, unsure what to do, had stacked hundreds of mattresses, where the bugs like to burrow, in the basement of the large hotel. Three floors of the sky-high motel were “completely infested.”

But for every story Knight has about work, someone else at the department has a story about Knight. Most are limited to work, but Department of Agriculture Director J.J. Goicoechea’s stories about Knight extend to his personal life. The two have worked together for nine years but have known each other for at least three decades.

Sitting in Knight’s office, the two swap stories, finishing each other's sentences as only longtime friends can do. 

“My dad thinks the world of this guy,” Goicoechea told The Nevada Independent, referring to his father, longtime elected official Pete Goicoechea. Then he turned to tell Knight, “You’re going to leave a big hole.”

Goicoechea has Knight to thank not just for helping him as he assumed his role as director of the department, which he took over in 2023, but for inadvertently introducing Goicoechea to the woman who is now his wife.

In 2006, a young woman named Sally took a job working as a seasonal employee for the department; she ended up in Eureka County working with Mormon crickets. When aerial pesticides are applied during Mormon cricket invasions, the treatments are very precise, relying on GPS coordinates to mark out perimeters to be sprayed. 

She’d been working atop a high mountain plotting the perimeter only to realize a bit later that she lost the GPS device. Frantically, she drove to the closest residence, which happened to be Goicoechea’s, and asked to use the phone to call Knight, her boss.

Goicoechea recalls her pulling up in a pickup scratched from driving through the state’s rugged terrain. While Sally was anxiously explaining to Knight how she’d lost the GPS, Goicoechea hopped on a horse and followed her tire tracks back up to a remote mountaintop, where he miraculously found the device.

“The rest is history,” Goicoechea said.

While Knight celebrated his retirement on July 3, Goicoechea and his wife were celebrating their 17th wedding anniversary.

When he walked out the door of the department, he closed a chapter that included 40 years with the Nevada Department of Agriculture and 45 years of working for the state.

But before he left, he helped interview potential candidates to replace him.

The department has already started interviewing for Knight’s replacement, because, as Knight said, “You’ve gotta have an entomologist to interview an entomologist.”

Knight’s retirement will be filled with woodworking, gardening and working on his personal insect collection. And he’s hoping he’ll be able to volunteer working with the state insect collection for several hours per week.

And, if it includes any travel, Knight knows from his line of work what hotels to steer clear of.

“I get samples in. I know where not to stay,” he said with a smile.