Bug Squad

"All human beings are born curious, but the wrong conditions can jeopardize that curiosity," says second-year Ph.D. student Ralph Washington, Jr. of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

If you haven't registered yet for the second annual UC Davis Bee Symposium: Keeping Bees Healthy, a daylong event focusing on bee health and best management practices, there's still time. The event, open to the public, is set from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Doom or gloom? Boom or bloom? Today is Earth Day, and millions of folks around the world stopped--at least for a moment--to pay tribute to the 46th annual observance. They planted trees, weeded their gardens, greeted pollinators, or just thought about environmental issues.

If you poked around all the bug exhibits during the campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day on Saturday, April 16, you probably came away thinking: Bugs rule. In sheer numbers, diversity and special honors.

Nature isn't perfect, but neither are we! Today we watched a Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) laying eggs on her host plant, the passionflower vine (Passiflora) and another Gulf Fritillary nectaring on the nearby Jupiter's Beard (Centranthus ruber). Ms.