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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. 

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The larvae of the Greater Wax Moth (Galleria mellonella) inside a bee hive. The black dotes are small hive beetles. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

National Moth Week: Here's One Moth that Beekeepers Won't Celebrate

July 29, 2022
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
During the 11th annual National Moth Week, one thing's for sure: Beekeepers won't be celebrating the beauty, life cycle, or habitat of the Greater Wax Moth (Galleria mellonella), also known as "the honeycomb moth." It's a major pest of bee colonies that aren't maintained well.
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A wooly bear caterpillar investigating an ice plant on Bodega Head, Sonoma County, in April 2022.(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Gotta Love Those Wooly Bear Caterpillars

July 28, 2022
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
You gotta love those wooly bear caterpillars. Richard "Rick" Karban, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, studies them. The rest of us admire them. We usually see them in the spring along the cliffs of Bodega Head on the Sonoma coast.
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A monarch caterpillar munching away on its host plant, milkweed, in a Vacaville, Calif., garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Monarch Butterflies: Closer to Extinction

July 27, 2022
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
It was a good news/bad news/sad news kind of day on July 21 when the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) announced that the migratory monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is now on its "Red List of Threatened Species as Endangered--threatened by habitat destruction and climate chan...
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