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

Medical entomologist Thomas Scott studies Aedes aegypti, a mosquito known for transferring dengue and other diseases. (CDC Photo)

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Congrats, Medical Entomologist and Humanitarian Thomas Scott

February 1, 2022

Congratulations to UC Davis medical entomologist and humanitarian Thomas W. Scott, selected as one of the world's Highly Cited Researchers for the third consecutive year.

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Almond blossoms greet the sky and bees in this image taken at the Matthew Turner Shipyard Park in Benicia on Jan. 30, 2012. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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The Real Almond Joy

January 31, 2022

California's almond pollination season typically starts in mid-February, around Valentine's Day, but along the Benicia waterfront, the almond trees sometimes blossom as early as Jan. 1. The climate is warm and temperate.

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These are some of the illustrations that Niels Groen will use at his UC Davis seminar.

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Simon 'Niels' Groen: How Predators Can Feed on That Highly Toxic Milkweed

January 28, 2022

"Scientists now understand how certain animals can feed on picturesque, orange monarch butterflies, which are filled from head to abdomen with milkweed plant toxins. "In high enough concentrations, milkweed can kill a horse, or a human.

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This is the species (Lasius nr. atopus) that inspired the initial stages of the UC Davis project. (Photo by Matthew Prebus)

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The Ants and Butterflies of Gates Canyon: Quite the Ecosystem

January 27, 2022

Gates Canyon, located just outside the city of Vacaville, in Solano County, Calif., is quite the ecosystem.

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Asher Schneider, 8, of Davis, holds his "runner-up" cabbage white butterfly.

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Eight-Year-Old Boy 'Runner-Up' in Hunt for First Cabbage White Butterfly of the Year

January 26, 2022

UC Davis distinguished professor Art Shapiro of the Department of Evolution and Ecology didn't sponsor his annual "Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest" this year, but if he had, an eight-year-old Davis boy would have been the runner-up.

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