Bug Squad

You've seen honey bees nectaring on flowers. You've watched their proboscis (tongue) probing for nectar. Some linger quite awhile before they buzz off. Have you ever thought about this: Do they have taste buds? A colleague asked that question.

Orb-weaver spiders know a thing or two about web design and development. And their skills have nothing to do with computers.

The "Belize Biobliz for the Bohart" was an un-believable trip! A group of scientists associated with the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis, journeyed to Belize last summer to add to the Bohart Museum's global collection of insects.

Have you ever seen a pink praying mantis, Stagmomantis californica? No? Now you have. Adrienne Austin-Shapiro of Davis yesterday spotted this pink praying mantis (below) on the second-floor wooden planking above Blondie's Pizza, 4th and G streets, Davis.

Presidential candidate Herbert Hoover campaigned for "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage." (Now we have free-range organic chicken on every barbecue grill, and as many as three fuel-efficient cars with sophisticated high-tech gadgets in every multi-car garage.