Bug Squad

It was July 3, 2020. The male bees, Melissodes agilis, were getting quite territorial. Every time a butterfly, a honey bee or another insect in our family's pollinator garden expressed an interest in foraging on the Mexican sunflowers, Tithonia rotundifola, a male Melissodes buzzed them.

In an era when folks say they have no clue what nematology is, it's gratifying to see it make the headlines.

Seen any Pipevine Swallowtails lately? The UC Davis Ecological Garden is teeming with eggs, larvae, pupa and adults. The butterflies there seem particularly fond of nectaring on Jupiter's beard, Centranthus ruber.

Congratulations to emeritus Cooperative Extension specialist Vernard Lewis of UC Berkeley, selected to deliver the Founders' Memorial Lecture at the 2021 annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America (ESA), set Oct. 31-Nov. 3 at the Colorado Convention Center, Denver.

Botanists Beverly Rathcke (1945-2011) and Jeanne Baret would have been proud. In their lifetimes, they didn't receive nearly enough credit for their work, but now they are memorialized in the names of newly described species of bacteria from the genus Acinetobacter that are specialized to flowers.