Bug Squad

 Have you ever spotted a colorful dragonfly or a majestic monarch lying motionless along a road and thought "I'd sure love to take that home and preserve it?"The Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on Sunday, Oct. 5 involves just that.  The event,  themed "Museum ABCs: How to Collect and…

 What do you prefer to do on a day off?For me, it's a "mini-vacation" to the UC Davis Bee Haven, the half-acre bee demonstration garden maintained by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (ENT). Installed in the fall of 2009, it's located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr Honey Bee Research…

 This is too good not to share!"That Wasp Guy" Sloan Tomlinson of Hatfield, Mass., an artist, photographer, researcher, and educator who "shares the beauty of the most-maligned insects: wasps," now has an incredible tattoo on his arm. It's of a Megarhyssa atrata, also known as the black…

 "It's one universal experience we all will share."So said a panel of eight professional experts in the death industry when they gathered in the Vacaville Museum courtyard to discuss their work. The museum hosted the panel discussion as part of its current gallery exhibition, "The Art of Death," which…

 "Look before you leap!"How many times have you heard that or something similar: "Pay attention! Watch your step! Be careful!  Be vigilant!"But have you ever seen a praying mantis take a step and then a gigantic leap--right into a spider web? "That's one small step for mantis, one giant leap for…