Bug Squad

What's going on with the monarchs? Our little pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif., usually draws dozens of them in the summer as they flutter around, sip nectar from the Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) and lay their eggs on their host plant, milkweed.

Just call them the "incredible aphid-eating machines." That would be the lady beetles, commonly known as ladybugs (although they are not bugs; they're beetles belonging to the family Coccinellidae, and they're not all "ladies"--some are male!).

There's an old joke circulating among entomologists about excited novices contacting them about finding a "two-headed butterfly." Sounds like National Enquirer stuff, right? Wrong. Just two butterflies mating.

It's a high honor.

Three faculty members from the University of California, Davis, will be among those sharing the "people" spotlight at the joint meeting of the XXVII Brazilian Congress and X Latin American Congress of Entomology --and the spotted wing drosophila will be among the insects sharing the "insect" spotlig...