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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signs of a predator. A tattered Buckeye butterfly, Junonia coenia, sipping nectar from a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifolia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Buckeye Butterfly: Wanna Piece of Me?

October 14, 2020
Wanna piece of me? "Hey, Buckeye butterfly, you over there with chunks of a wing missing, yeah you, what happened?" "Well, it was like this. I was just fluttering around, looking for some good nectar, and a predator grabbed me. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was a praying mantis.
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The view from Gates Canyon Road on Sept. 25, 2020, following the Aug. 19th wildfire. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Rising from the Ashes--Some Day

October 13, 2020
Note: We asked butterfly expert Arthur "Art" Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, to comment on the effect of the California wildfires on butterflies and their habitat.
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Gulf Fritillaries flutter over a praying mantis, Mantis religiosa, in a passionflower patch in Vacaville, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Will a Praying Mantis Eat a Caterpillar?

October 12, 2020
Will a praying mantis eat a caterpillar? Short answer: Yes. For several days, we've been watching a resident praying mantis, a female Mantis religiosa, hanging out in our patch of Passiflora (passionflower), the host plant of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly, Agraulis vanillae.
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