Bug Squad

They dogged the dogface butterfly.

What's the story behind how and why the California dogface butterfly was designated as the state insect 50 years ago? That story will be among the highlights of the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house from 1 to 4 p.m.

Picture this. A female Melissodes agilis, the so-called "agile longhorned bee," is foraging on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola. Longhorned? So named because they have unusually long antennae.

A retired Fairfield elementary school teacher says that butterflies are the "gateway bug" to entomology. It's the symmetry, the beauty, the agility, he says. He's right. So, forget about the old adage, "stop and smell the roses" (although that's good, too).

Congrats to UC Davis distinguished professor Walter Soares Leal of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and a former chair of the Department of Entomology, on his induction as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).