Bug Squad

It's an invader that has long attracted attention--and alarm--in California agriculture. "The spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii, first invaded California in 2008," says UC Davis postdoctoral researcher Brian Gress, "and has since rapidly spread throughout North America and Europe.

It was the morning of Jan. 1, 2018, a year and four days ago. While strolling the grounds of the Benicia Capitol State Historic Park, we captured images of yellow-faced bumble bees, Bombus vosnesenskii, nectaring on jade, Crassula ovata. They were packing cream-colored pollen from the jade.

If you've been looking for that elusive first-of-the-year cabbage white butterfly in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano, you're in luck. Art Shapiro hasn't found it yet, and neither has anyone else. So you can keep looking.

It's a question everyone wants to know.

Do locusts browse computer dating sites, trying to find a match made in heaven? They do. Just check out the Bohart Museum of Entomology's newly published calendar. "Mr. January" is a locust sitting quite comfortably in a chair--a swivel chair at that--and eagerly accessing a dating site.