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 monarch butterfly nectaring on a showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa, in Vacaville, California in June, 2016. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Article

A Good News Day: Monarchs on the UC Davis Campus

September 1, 2022
Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, has been looking for monarchs all year long on the UC Davis campus--as have scores of others. On Friday, Aug. 26, he met with success. He spotted four within half an hour.
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A monarch laying eggs in a Vacaville retail nursery on Sept. 4, 2019. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Article

That Milkweed You Buy at Retail Nurseries May Contain Pesticides

August 31, 2022
It's Sept. 4, 2019. We notice a monarch butterfly laying eggs on milkweed in an enclosed Vacaville retail nursery. We purchase the plant and add it to our pollinator garden. Did the eggs ever hatch? Did we ever get caterpillars, chrysalids and adults? No. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
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A praying mantis, a Stagmomantis limbata, hides beneath an African blue basil leaf in a Vacaville pollinator garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Article

How to Find a Praying Mantis in the Wild

August 30, 2022
If you're trying to find a praying mantis in the wild, go where the food source is. Sounds pretty easy, right? But oh, they're camouflaged. They lie in wait, as ambush predators, and strike. Now you see the predator, now you don't.
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