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Bug Squad

Bug Squad blog image depicts a honey bee sting in action.

Welcome to the Bug Squad blog! The Bug Squad blog was launched Aug. 6, 2008 and is a daily blog (Monday through Friday). It showcases entomologists and the work they do.  The blog focuses on scientists in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, the Bohart Museum of Entomology, Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, the UC Davis Bee Haven, and assorted campuswide events, including UC Davis Picnic Day, UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, and Bohart Museum open houses. The blog spotlights insects, including bees, butterflies, dragonflies, and praying mantises, as well as arachnids such as jumping spiders and crab spiders. Author and photographer is Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and a longtime journalist and community scientist with two degrees from Washington State University.  She is a member of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) and the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE). Her blog posts and images have won international awards from ACE and ESA and appeared on journal and magazine covers. She shoots primarily with a Nikon Z-8 mirrorless camera, a Nikon D500 and Nikon 800, with assorted macro lenses. Feedspot lists it as one of the top entomology blogs on the Internet. 

A bigeyed bug on the wing of a monarch butterfly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A Bigeyed Bug and a Monarch Butterfly

January 16, 2024
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
You've heard folks call insects "big 'ol bugs" (often in astonishment or terror), right? But have you ever seen a "bigeyed bug on a monarch butterfly?" Bigeyed bugs, Geocoris spp.
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A honey bee and a Western yellowjacket meet on a rose at a UC Davis bee garden. Both are pollinators. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Wasps: Fascinating Insects But Often Demonized

January 15, 2024
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you hate wasps, and brush them off as just "uninvited guests at my picnic," take another look. For one, they're pollinators. Two, they're great predators, contributing to the biocontrol of such lepidopteran pests as cabbageworms (larva of cabbage white butterflies).
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This is one of the images of monarchs that Davis resident Larry Snyder took at the North Davis Channel.

Larry Snyder Sharing Images of 'Insects at the Ditch'

January 12, 2024
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
They crawl, they fly, they flutter, they buzz. They look at us, and we look back. But if you're Larry Snyder of Davis, an insect photographer and a retired musician, you not only look back, but you take their images.
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A cartoon from the William Ja lab. Ja, with the Herbert Wertheim Scripps UF Institute for Biomedical Innovation and Technology in Jupiter, Florida, will speak on "Eat, Excrete, & Die: Regulation of Homeostatic Behaviors and Aging in Drosophila" at 4:10 p.m., Monday, Jan. 22.

UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology Hosting Winter Seminars

January 10, 2024
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
The winter seminars hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology are underway. All seminars are on Mondays at 4:10 p.m. in Room 122 of Briggs Hall and also will be on Zoom. The Zoom link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672. No seminar will take place on Monday, Jan.
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