Bug Squad

How little we know about monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus... And how long misinformation can linger...

Can you imagine typing a huge grant application on an 132-year-old "type writer?" Make that 986 pages, equal to a four-inch-thick document. No one visiting the Briggs Hall office of UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock can imagine that, either.

It's Friday Fly Day--and time to post images of a syrphid fly. Syrphid flies, often mistaken for honey bees, are pollinators, too. Also known as flower flies and hover flies, syrphids hover over a flower before touching down.

No contest, no winner, no beer?

You've probably seen California's state insect, the California dogface butterfly, on a first-class stamp, in a book, or on the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology poster.