Bug Squad

Bumble bee on bull thistle at Bodega Bay

Looking for a specific Blog post?

Search Now

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

Monarchs overwintering in the Natural Bridges State Park, Santa Cruz, in 2016. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Article

How Little We Know About Monarchs...

January 25, 2022

How little we know about monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus... And how long misinformation can linger...

View Article

A hand of UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock rests on the Odell "type writer." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Article

The 'Type Writer' That Saved a Career and Helped Develop One at UC Davis

January 24, 2022

Can you imagine typing a huge grant application on an 132-year-old "type writer?" Make that 986 pages, equal to a four-inch-thick document. No one visiting the Briggs Hall office of UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock can imagine that, either.

View Article

A syrphid fly, a female Scaeva pyrastri, hovers over an Asian lady beetle (Harmonia axyridis). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Article

It's Friday Fly Day!

January 21, 2022

It's Friday Fly Day--and time to post images of a syrphid fly. Syrphid flies, often mistaken for honey bees, are pollinators, too. Also known as flower flies and hover flies, syrphids hover over a flower before touching down.

View Article

A cabbage white butterfly nectaring on lavender in Vacaville, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Article

Shapiro Records First-of-the-Year Cabbage White Butterfly: 'Pop Goes the Pieris'

January 20, 2022

No contest, no winner, no beer?

View Article

Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, walks up Gates Canyon in this image, taken in 2014. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Article

California Dogface Butterfly: What the Fire Did

January 19, 2022

You've probably seen California's state insect, the California dogface butterfly, on a first-class stamp, in a book, or on the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology poster.

View Article