Bug Squad

The question is troubling: What's going on with the monarch butterfly population in the West? The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation reported this week that its Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count shows a decline for the second consecutive year.

Rock artists, all. Those who painted rocks at the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on Saturday, Jan. 18 were not just rock artists. They were rock stars, painting creative, inspirational and seasonal illustrations.

Tien Ferreira, 4, of Fairfield knew just what to do. She donned her special outfit, a blue butterfly cape, and headed over to the open house at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis, to see the blue butterflies. The event, held Saturday afternoon, Jan.

It was a "Science of a Day" at the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology open house last Saturday afternoon, Jan. 18. For three hours, six UC Davis doctoral students discussed their research and fielded questions from the 270-plus guests, ranging from pre-kindergarten students to senior citizens.

How do monarch butterflies know when to migrate? Take the case of a male monarch reared, released and tagged by Steven Johnson in a Washington State University citizen-science project operated by WSU entomologist David James. Johnson tagged and released the monarch on Sunday, Aug.