Bug Squad

Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. Sometimes you can't see the trees for the forest. And sometimes you can't see the spider at all in a purple forest. Such was the case this week when a tiny white crab spider cunningly figured out the best place to prey was in a flowering artichoke.

If Cinderella were a moth, what species would she be? Maybe this tiny, shimmering one. When we spotted this visitor during National Moth Week on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola, in our pollinator garden, we asked our Bohart Museum of Entomology associates for identification.

Picture this: A Polyphemus silk moth, Antheraea polyphemus, flutters into the Davis backyard of Bohart Museum of Entomology associate Greg Karoefelas on April 12, 2021 and visits his blacklighting set-up.

They say good news comes in threes. Sometimes it comes in fives! Congrats to the five UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty members for their outstanding academic achievements.

Are you tired of the triple-digit temperatures? Wish someone would throw a breeze your way and provide a little shade?