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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. 

Lynn Kimsey (far right), director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, talks about the history of the insect museum to UC Davis Chancellor Gary May and Dean Helene Dillard (center) of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. In back are Steve Nadler, chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematmology; undergraduate students Emma Cluff and Lohit Garikipati and Nann Fangue, current chair of the Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology Department. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

To Boldly Go, and the Chancellor Did: To an Insect Museum!

February 8, 2018
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
To Boldy Go. UC Davis Chancellor Gary May, a Star Trek enthusiast, coined that theme last year when he launched the university's 10-year strategic planning process. It's aimed at bringing together everyone's bold ideas to propel us to accomplish things we've only dreamed of in the past.
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A yellow-faced bumble bee nectars on jade blossoms at the Benicia (Calif.) Capitol State Historic Park. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Is Jade Lucky? Well, Bumble Bees Like It!

February 7, 2018
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
The bumble bee was hungry. She moved quickly from blossom to blossom on a jade plant at the Benicia (Calif.) Capitol State Historic Park, Solano County. As she foraged, you could see her tongue (proboscis) and her trademark yellow face and yellow stripe on her abdomen.
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A stick insect in the process of molting. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

A Little Sticktoitiveness

February 6, 2018
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
Well, it did what it was supposed to do. It walked. When Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and UC Davis professor of entomology, glanced at a wall near the entrance of the Bohart Museum during a recent open house, she noticed something that wasn't part of the wall.
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This Culex mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus, transmits West Nile virus and other viruses. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Why Vector-Borne Diseases Remain a Key Threat to Human Health

February 5, 2018
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
"Vector-borne diseases remain a key threat to human health, wildlife, and plants, in part, due to the multitude of factors that influence their transmission," says biologist A. Marm Kilpatrick, assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, UC Santa Cruz.
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