Bug Squad

Who doesn't love a ladybug? Call them ladybugs, call them ladybirds, call them lady beetles, call them Coccinellidae, or just call them aphid eaters or deluxe aphid eaters. Or Joey Chestnut. Or Josephine Chestnut.

Got a question about insects or arthropods that's been bugging you? Head over to the Bug Doctor booth staffed by UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology doctoral students on Saturday, April 23 at Briggs Hall during the 108th annual UC Davis Picnic Day. The Bug Doctor will be in.

Fantastic title: "Bad Bugs, Pungent Parasites and Toxic Travelers!" Don't you just love that alliteration?

Talk about a quail of a time.... When the ootheca of a praying mantis, Stagmomantis limbata, hatched April 9 on a clothespin clamped to our clothesline in our yard, all the nymphs scattered. Some crawled up a metallic quail sculpture, the highest structure on the clothesline.

Saturday, April 9 was the day a clothespin sprang to life. Some 200 praying mantis nymphs emerged from an ootheca that Mama Mantis (Stagmomantis limbata) had deposited last summer in our pollinator garden in Vacaville.