Bug Squad

Bumble bee on bull thistle at Bodega Bay

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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This is a Jerusalem cricket, commonly known as a "potato bug." Someone once described it as a "cricket on steroids." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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This Is NOT an Asian Giant Hornet

December 11, 2020
Nope, not an Asian giant hornet. Not even close. It's a Jerusalem cricket, sometimes called a "potato bug." The be-on-the-lookout (BOLO) for the Asian giant hornet detected in Canada and Washington state has resulted in scores of queries and submissions of not-even-close specimens.
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A mama widow spider juggles her egg sacs. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Do You Know Your Spiders?

December 10, 2020
Do you know your spiders? If you engage in social media, you've probably seen a "what-is-this" query about a spider that some unsuspecting person discovered quite unexpectedly in a garden, bedroom, bathroom or garage.
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UC Davis student Jay Rosenheim digging a nest at UC Berkeley's Sagehen Creek Field Station, Truckee, in 1984.
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UC Davis Entomologist Jay Rosenheim: How His World Changed in 1981

December 8, 2020
A little known fact about the outstanding career of Jay Rosenheim, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology and a newly inducted Fellow of the Entomological Society of America, is that, as an undergraduate at UC Davis, he initially majored in physics. Physics? Yes.
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