Bug Squad

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.

A wooly bear caterpillar investigating an ice plant on Bodega Head, Sonoma County, in April 2022.(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Gotta Love Those Wooly Bear Caterpillars

July 28, 2022

You gotta love those wooly bear caterpillars. Richard "Rick" Karban, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, studies them. The rest of us admire them. We usually see them in the spring along the cliffs of Bodega Head on the Sonoma coast.

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A monarch caterpillar munching away on its host plant, milkweed, in a Vacaville, Calif., garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Monarch Butterflies: Closer to Extinction

July 27, 2022

It was a good news/bad news/sad news kind of day on July 21 when the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced that the migratory monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is now on its "Red List of Threatened Species as Endangered--threatened by habitat destruction and climate chan...

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This is the Jerusalem cricket t-shirt by artist Allen Chew, a UC Davis student and Bohart volunteer, and designer Fran Keller, professor at Folsom Lake College. Keller, a Bohart Museum scientist, is a UC Davis doctoral alumnus.

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Potato Bug Lovers, Unite! A 'Vienna Sausage' T-Shirt!

July 26, 2022

It had to happen.

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Entomologist Jeff Smith (second from left), curator of the Bohart Museum's Lepidoptera collection, talks to visitors at a recent Moth Night. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Oh, What a (Moth) Night This Will Be! A Conversation With Bohart's Lepidoptera Curator Jeff Smith

July 25, 2022

Oh, what a (moth) night this will be! The Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis is celebrating National Moth Night on Saturday, July 30 from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. and you're invited. The insect museum is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane.

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In this 2018 file photo, UC Davis arachnologist Jason Bond checks out the specimens at the Bohart Museum's blacklighting display while "Moth Man" John De Benedictis observes. Bond, the Schlinger Endowed Chair of Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, was recently named associate dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Mark Your Calendar for 'Moth Night' at Bohart Museum: July 30

July 22, 2022

Mark your calendar! The Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, is celebrating National Moth Night on Saturday, July 30 from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.--both indoors in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building at 555 Crocker Lane, and outdoors, within a short walking distance.

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