Bug Squad

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." --John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra Muir said it well.

Oh, what a (moth) night! Saturday, July 18 marked the beginning of National Moth Week and the Bohart Museum of Entomology obliged with an indoor and outdoor open house, its first-ever evening open house. The event took place from 8 to 11 p.m.

Plants can eavesdrop. They can sense danger. So says ecologist Richard 'Rick' Karban, professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and author of the newly published book, Plant Sensing and Communication (University of Chicago Press).

So you want to be a beekeeper...but you don't know where to begin. You're in luck. Bee experts at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, University of California, Davis, are planning two short courses or sessions in September--the first on Sept. 13 and the second on Sept. 20.

Sometimes you just can't win for losing. This morning a newly emerged Gulf Fritillary butterfly (Agraulis vanillae) began drying its damp wings, preparing for flight. It had just emerged from its chrysalis.