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

Buddies? A honey bee edges toward a Noctuid caterpillar. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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As the Worm Turns

November 6, 2012

There it was. A green caterpillar, aka larva, aka worm, occupied a blanket flower (Gaillardia) last Friday morning in the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre pollinator garden on Bee Biology Road at the University of California, Davis. Soon a honey bee from the nearby Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.

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Ant investigates a Gulf Fritillary caterpillar. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Love Those Gulf Frits

November 5, 2012

If you're passionate about Passiflora (passion flower vine), you're probably passionate about those Gulf Fritillary butterflies (Agraulis vanillae). It's November with temperatures in the unseasonal mid-80s, and the butterflies are laying eggs like there's no tomorrow.

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Western tiger swallowtail is one of the butterflies listed in Melissa Whitaker's app. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Spotlighting Butterflies

November 2, 2012

If you want to learn about butterflies, "there's an app for that." And a free one, at that.

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Western yellowjacket (Vespula penyslvanica) heading toward a red-hot poker (but this variety is yellow). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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It's No Vegetarian

November 1, 2012

Bee specialists like to point out that the yellowjacket is a carnivore and the honey bee is a vegetarian. They are, indeed.

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Harlequin cabbage bug feeding on cabbage. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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A Bug That's Perfect for Halloween

October 31, 2012

If there ever were a bug just perfect for Halloween, that would be the orange and black Harlequin cabbage bug, Murgantia histrionica, also known as a calico bug or fire bug. Its brilliant, distinctive colors bring back memories of a circus clown.

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