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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. 

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Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, with his screensaver, an image he took of Franklin's bumble bee. He passed June 7. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Franklin's Bumble Bee May Be Protected: A Legacy of Robbin Thorp

August 13, 2019
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
The late Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, and a global authority on bees, worked tirelessly to try to include Franklin's bumble bee (Bombus franklini) as an endangered species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA).
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Lying in Wait--An assassin bug, Zelus renardii, lies in wait on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Assassins in The Garden

August 12, 2019
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
A pollinator garden is a study in diversity--and of inclusion and exclusion. The residents, the immigrants, the fly-bys, the crawlers, the wigglers, the jumpers. The big, bad and bugly. The prey and the predators. The vegetarians and carnivores.
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Legendary Lepidopterists Paul Opler (left), an octogenarian, and Robert Michael Pyle, a septuagenarian, chat during their visit to the Bohart Museum of Entomology. It was part of the Lepidopterists' Society's 68th annual conference. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A Gathering of Lepidopterists at UC Davis

August 8, 2019
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
They are legends. Two of those attending the four-day international Lepidopterists' Society conference held recently at the University of California, Davis, are as celebrated in Lepidoptera circles as the butterflies they study.
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