Bug Squad

Bumble bee on bull thistle at Bodega Bay

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UC ANR is renovating its website. 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/blogcore/archive.cfm

A syrphid fly touches down on a zinnia, unaware of a stalking jumping spider. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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The Spider, the Syrphid and the Zinnia

November 23, 2022

What are you having for Thanksgiving? Turkey and all the trimmings? Well, this little jumping spider had his sights set on ambushing a delicious syrphid fly.

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Can you spot the bumble bee in this bed of Eryngium amethystinum in the Sunset Gardens, Sonoma Cornerstone? (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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A Very Hungry Bumble Bee

November 22, 2022

She was all bees-ness, this yellow-faced queen bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii. There she was, foraging in a bed of steely blue-purple flowers, Eryngium amethystinum, a genus that belongs to the carrot family, Apiaceae. A native bee on a non-native plant. It was Saturday, Nov.

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Doctoral candidate Danielle Rutkowski, who studies bumble bees, won a President's Prize in her category. This was her second consecutive President's Prize.

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From A (Ants) to B (Bumble Bees) And More...

November 21, 2022

Congratulations to four outstanding young entomologists from the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology--all PhDs to be.

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A syprhid fly and a Gulf Fritillary sharing a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Friday Fly Day: A Syrphid Fly and a Butterfly

November 18, 2022

It's Friday Fly Day and time to post a syrphid fly with a butterfly. The occasion: a syrphid fly and the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) or passion butterfly are sharing a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola, and neither seems bothered that the other is there.

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A female carpenter bee, Xylocopa sonorina, also known as the Valley carpenter bee, forages on showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa. This is one of the bees that the Rachel Vannette lab studied. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Innovative Research by RSPIB Scholar: Surprising Find About Carpenter Bees

November 17, 2022

When Professors Jay Rosenheim, Joanna Chiu and Louie Yang of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology launched the Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology (RSPIB) to give undergraduates closely mentored research experiences in biology, the innovative projects have simply been outstan...

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