Bug Squad

A winter pollinator garden does not buzz with bees; it crawls with earwigs, ants, roly-polys, and other insects. Turn over a rock, a pot, or a garden sculpture and there they are. Well, there one was. An earwig looked up as we lifted a garden sculpture.

If you're not big on bugs, you will be--or should be--after seeing UC Davis entomologist Gwen Erdosh's recent interview with reporter Ashley Williams on Good Day Sacramento. Erdosh, 21, an undergraduate entomology major and president of the UC Davis Entomology Club, is passionate about bugs.

You could say that entomologist Megan Meuti of The Ohio State University (OSU) messes with mosquitoes' circadian clocks. She's hoping she can trick Culex pipiens, the Northern house mosquito, into not biting us.

"Around 250 million years ago, at the start of the Triassic period, a species of insect evolved to have a narrow waist, called a petiole. This adaptation allowed greater flexibility and maneuverability of the ovipositor, the tubular structure on the female's rear used to deposit eggs.

The newly published UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology calendar is DCI: delightful, creative and innovative! Bohart Museum director Lynn Kimsey, a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, said the calendar--featuring students' unusual comments on their Entomology 100 term papers and illustr...