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

Jeff Smith, curator of the Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, shows visitors some of the butterfly specimens. The worldwide Lepidoptera collection now totals more than 500,000. One of the most recent donors was the late Charles Hageman of Yuba City (1945-2021). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Bohart Museum Butterfly Donor Chuck Hageman Leaves a Lasting Legacy

November 23, 2021

When the Northern California Lepidopterists met in February of 2019 at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis, the members and guests admired the Rod Davis fritillary specimens recently added to the Bohart collection, courtesy of Charles "Chuck" Hageman of Yuba City.

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"The growing presence of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which can transmit the viruses that cause Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever as well as the parasite that causes heartworm in pets, is a major public health threat," says UC Davis medical entomologist/geneticist Geoffrey Attardo. (Photo by Geoffrey Attardo)

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Geoffrey Attardo: Growing Presence of This Mosquito: 'A Major Public Health Threat'

November 22, 2021

UC Davis medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo, an assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, says that the public health threat of the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, cannot be overstated and it's crucial to control them now before a public health emerge...

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Urban garden management can play an important role in supporting species diversity and the provision of insect-mediated services, says ecologist Monika Egerer, an assistant professor at Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany.

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Monika Egerer: About Those Wild Bees and Natural Enemies in Urban Gardens

November 19, 2021

Urban garden management can play an important role in supporting species diversity and the provision of insect-mediated services, says ecologist Monika Egerer, an assistant professor at Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany.

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A cluster of monarchs overwintering in an 80-foot-high eucalyptus tree at the Natural Bridges State Park, Santa Cruz, on Nov. 14, 2016. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Monarch Population May Be 'Fluttering Back'

November 18, 2021

Let the count begin! Researchers and volunteers in a three-week project headed by the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation are now counting the Western monarch population at overwintering sites along the California coast. It all began Saturday.

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The Bohart Museum of Entomology surpassed its goal of $5000 and gratefully received $6000. (Screen shot)

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Why Folks at the Bohart Museum of Entomology Are Smiling--And So Very Grateful

November 17, 2021

If the folks at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis are smiling even more than usual, that's because their UC Davis CrowdFund project resulted in 120 percent funded! In a month-long campaign, they were seeking $5000 by Oct. 31 and donors generously provided them with a total of $6000.

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