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Bug Squad

Bug Squad blog image depicts a honey bee sting in action.

Welcome to the Bug Squad blog! The Bug Squad blog was launched Aug. 6, 2008 and is a daily blog (Monday through Friday). It showcases entomologists and the work they do.  The blog focuses on scientists in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, the Bohart Museum of Entomology, Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, the UC Davis Bee Haven, and assorted campuswide events, including UC Davis Picnic Day, UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, and Bohart Museum open houses. The blog spotlights insects, including bees, butterflies, dragonflies, and praying mantises, as well as arachnids such as jumping spiders and crab spiders. Author and photographer is Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and a longtime journalist and community scientist with two degrees from Washington State University.  She is a member of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) and the Association for Communication Excellence (ACE). Her blog posts and images have won international awards from ACE and ESA and appeared on journal and magazine covers. She shoots primarily with a Nikon Z-8 mirrorless camera, a Nikon D500 and Nikon 800, with assorted macro lenses. Feedspot lists it as one of the top entomology blogs on the Internet. 

Cousins Aryanna Nicole Torres, 8, of Woodland and Aaden Matthew Brazelton, 8, of Vacaville, get ready to eat insects. Their grandmother, UC Davis employee Elvira Galvan Hack of Dixon, accompanied them to the museum. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Eating Insects at the Bohart Museum of Entomology

October 2, 2019
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
Fact: Eighty percent of the world's population eat insects. Fact: At least 80 percent of those attending the Bohart Museum of Entomology's open house on entomophagy ate one or more insects--a cricket, an earthworm or a mealworm. The diners ranged in age from a 9-month-old girl to senior citizens.
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A monarch butterfly sips nectar from a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) in front of a bird, decorative art. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The Butterfly and the Bird

October 1, 2019
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
A monarch butterfly fluttered into our pollinator garden in Vacaville yesterday and sipped nectar from a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) as a bird looked on. Well, sort of looked on. The bird was decorative art. The monarch was real. Now if that bird had been real, the monarch may have been a meal.
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Adult Caenorhabditis elegans. Wikipedia describes it as "a free-living, transparent nematode, about 1mm in length, that lives in temperature soil environments." (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

Plant Nematologist Nathan Schroeder: 'Endless Worms Most Beautiful'

September 30, 2019
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you're interested in nematodes--also called "roundworms"--then you'll want to be around when plant nematologist Nathan Schroeder, associate professor of crop sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, presents a seminar on Wednesday, Oct.
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Two monarchs arrived today at a pollinator garden in Vacaville to sip nectar from a patch of Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A Monarch Kind of Day

September 27, 2019
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
Today was a Monarch Kind of Day...in Vacaville. When Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, searched for butterfly species today at one of his field sites--Gates Canyon in Vacaville--he spotted not one, but two monarchs.
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