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

CAMPERS in the Bio Boot Camp may see this dragonfly, a flame skimmer, on the UC Davis campus or at the Sagehen Creek Field Station. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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This Is a 'Bio Boot Camp'

March 18, 2011

You may have heard about the "Bug Boot Camp" that ant specialist Phil Ward, professor of entomology at the UC Davis Department of Entomology, conducts for graduate and undergraduate students every other summer.

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GRADUATE STUDENT Kelly Hamby, who is studying for her doctorate in entomology at UC Davis, works in the Frank Zalom lab on the spotted wing drosophila. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Tackling Spotted Wing Drosophila

March 17, 2011

Deep in the bowels of Briggs Hall on the UC Davis campus, entomology graduate student Kelly Hamby works on a pest that is giving growers fits: spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii).

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CHEMICAL ECOLOGISTS Walter Leal (foreground) and Zain Syed at work in the Leal lab in the UC Davis Department of Entomology. Leal is a professor and former chair of the department, and Syed is a postdoctoral researcher and the primary author of a paper published March 16 in PLoS One. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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On the Trail of a Better Insect Repellent

March 16, 2011

Researchers in the Walter Leal lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology, are engaging in some exciting research. They just discovered a "generic insect repellent detector" in the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster)--research published today (March 16) in PloS One (Public Library of Science).

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FRANK ZALOM, integrated pest management specialist and professor and former vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, is the 2011 recipient of the C. W. Woodworth Award. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Our IPM Specialist

March 15, 2011

Congratulations to integrated pest management specialist Frank Zalom, professor and former vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology. He's just been named the recipient of the C. W. Woodworth Award, the highest award bestowed by the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America.

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HONEY BEE heads for the highest blossoms in a UC Davis peach orchard. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Peachy Keen

March 14, 2011

California peach blossoms are peachy keen. Especially when honey bees are foraging. The pink pastel blossoms, powder blue sky, and golden honey bees...yes, California peach orchards are blooming.

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