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.

This is the University of California Linnaean Games Team competing at the 2018 meeting of the Entomological Society of America. From left are Zachary Griebenow and Brendon Boudinot of UC Davis, captain Ralph Washington Jr. of UC Berkeley, and Emily Bick of UC Davis. They won the national championship. (ESA Photo)

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Emily Bick: Entomologist Extraordinaire Off to University of Copenhagen

July 30, 2019

It's difficult to believe that it was four years ago--four years ago!--that Emily Bick, entomology student extraordinaire, joined the doctoral program in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. How fast time passes. Bick will present her exit seminar at 3 p.m., Monday, Aug.

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Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, sits next to her well-used microscope. Its cover is a pack rat, a stuffed toy animal. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Well, Yes, That's What It Is!

July 29, 2019

If you should walk into the office of Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, you may not notice it at first. The desk, yes. The books, yes. The specimens, yes. Wait, what's that protective cover on the microscope? Could it be? It is.

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"Moth Man" John DeBenedictus (left) shows Professor Jason Bond the insects on the sheet in the Bohart Museum's blacklighting display last year. Bond is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Like a Moth to a Flame: Moth Night at Bohart Museum of Entomology

July 26, 2019

Like a moth to a flame... That's what it will be like when folks flock to the Bohart Museum of Entomology on Saturday night, Aug. 3 for its annual Moth Night. It's free and family friendly--and it's all in keeping with National Moth Week: Exploring Nighttime Nature, July 20-28.

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A male longhorned bee, Melissodes agilis, targets the back of a painted lady, Vanessa cardui, on a Mexican sunflower in a Vacaville pollinator garden. This is typical territorial behavior. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Just Being Totally Territorial

July 25, 2019

What was that! If you grow Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia) in your pollinator garden, you've probably noticed the fast-flying longhorned male bees being totally territorial. Their job is to target whatever's on the Tithonia.

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A female Tramea lacerata or black saddlebags dragonfly, on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) in Vacaville, Calif. Shortly after this image was taken, it flew. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Of Predators, Sidewalks and Black Saddlebags...

July 24, 2019

It's always a good day when you encounter a dragonfly on Main Street USA. Such was the case on Wednesday, July 17 when seemingly out of nowhere, a shiny Tramea lacerata "black saddlebags" appeared in front of me on the sidewalk fronting the Vacaville Chamber of Commerce.

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