Bug Squad

The bee and the butterfly. The honey bee and the Painted Lady. Apis mellifera and Vanessa cardui. They both wanted to sip that sweet nectar from a mustard blossom. The Painted Lady was there first. Sometimes it's "first come, first served" and sometimes it's "I'll have what she's having.

"Yecch! What's that ugly bug? Kill it!" Have you ever heard anyone say that when they see the larva of a lady beetle (aka ladybug, family Coccinellidae)? Unfortunately, it's quite common among non-gardeners and non-insect enthusiasts.

We rarely see an adult praying mantis until late summer or fall. Their offspring are out there, though. And sometimes we see life go full circle. On Sept.

Forest health promises to take a turn for the better, thanks to forest entomologists like Jackson Audley, a doctoral student at the University of California, Davis.

UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal characterizes the work in his lab as "like bolas spiders." What are bolas spiders? Well, they're also known as angling or fishing spiders. That's because they don't spin a web, they hunt with a sticky glob of silk on the end of a line known as "bolas.