Bug Squad

The Sting. (c) Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The Bug Squad blog, by Kathy Keatley Garvey of the University of California, Davis, is a daily (Monday-Friday) blog launched Aug. 6, 2008. It is about the wonderful world of insects and the entomologists who study them. Blog posts are archived at https://my.ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/index.cfm. The story behind "The Sting" is here: https://my.ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=7735.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A male Melissodes agilis dives toward the female of his species, but she's not interested. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Defensive Measures: Leave Me Alone!

August 3, 2023
Have you ever seen the defensive antics of a female longhorned bee, sometimes called a sunflower bee, as she's trying to forage on flowers while a suitor is trying to get her attention?
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A male Melissodes agilis pauses to sip nectar from a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Get Off My Turf!

August 2, 2023
Get off my turf! The native bees known as Melissodes, the longhorned bees, start stirring in the early morning. First, they settle on a leaf or flower to warm up their flight muscles. Once ready to fly, they don't let up until late afternoon.
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Anna Garrison's arm art: a tattoo of Cordulegaster diadema, aka Apache spiketail. The Sacramento resident is the daughter of noted dragonfly expert Rosser Garrison. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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A Dragonfly to Behold: Within an Arm's Reach

August 1, 2023
International dragonfly authority and researcher Rosser Garrison, who retired as a senior insect biosystematist with the California Department of Food and Agriculture in 2017 and has authored such well-cited books as Dragonfly Genera of the New World: an llustrated and Annotated Key to the Anisopter...
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Tephritid fruit fly expert Nikos Papadopoulos of Greece showed a video on tephritid flies at the Bohart Museum of Entomology. He did postdoctoral work at UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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International Scientists at the Bohart Museum Open House

July 28, 2023
When the Bohart Museum of Entomology hosted an open house, "An Evening at the Museum," on Saturday, July 22, showcasing moths and flies, the moth experts were there to celebrate National Moth Week, July 22-30 and the fly experts had just attended the 10th International Dipterology Congress, held Jul...
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