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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red admiral, Vanessa atalanta. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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In Search of Butterflies

January 21, 2021
Oh, to find a butterfly in January. Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, knows where they are. As mentioned in a previous Bug Squad blog, he spotted a cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, on Jan.
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Thrips is a major pest of lettuce production in Salinas. (Illustration courtesy of Daniel Hasegawa)
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Research Entomologist Daniel Hasegawa Targets Thrips

January 18, 2021
They're small, about 1 mm long or less, with characteristic fringed wings. They fly, but not well. But thrips do pack a powerful punch. A major pest of many agricultural crops, including lettuce, they damage plants by (1) sucking their juices and (2) transmitting viruses.
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This manzanita plant at the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, near Old Davis Road, is where UC Davis postdoctoral researcher Charlie Nicholson captured an image of the first bumble bee of the year. (Photo by Charlie Nicholson)
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Why Bumble Bee Expert Robbin Thorp Would Have Been Proud

January 15, 2021
Robbin Thorp would have been proud of what happened on Thursday, Jan. 14. When the UC Davis emeritus professor of entomology, a global authority on bumble bees, died June 7, 2019 at age 85, scientists found a way to memorialize him and what he loved.
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