Bug Squad

Nazzy Pakpour has a way with kids. At a recent Bohart Museum of Entomology open house, she read passages from her newly published children's book, Please Don't Bite Me: Insects that Buzz, Bite and Sting, and then encouraged questions.

It's not every day you find a 15-million-year-old skull of a dolphin. Leave it to an eagle-eyed entomologist accustomed to searching for elusive bees to find it. Emily Bzdyk, who holds a master's degree in entomology from UC Davis, is making national headlines, but not about insects this time.

The Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, has announced the themes of its fall open houses: Sunday, Aug. 27: Praying Mantises Saturday, Sept. 23: Household Vampires Saturday, Nov. 4: Monarchs The open houses, free and family friendly, take place from 1 to 4 p.m.

If you've ever seen the nests of the bindweed turret bees, Diadasia bituberculata, and if you've ever tried to photograph these fast-flying bees, you know how speedy they are and how difficult they are to photograph.

And just like that, a female monarch butterfly fluttered into our Vacaville pollinator garden this morning, Aug. 10, and left a dozen or so calling cards: precious eggs. We earlier saw a male monarch patrolling the garden on the morning of July 23, but he left to go find the girls.