Bug Squad

Naming a child or a pet takes some major thought and requires some major decisions. Naming our son was easy. We opted for family names handed down 200 years ago. A puppy? When we acquired a half-St.

Christian Nansen, the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's new agricultural entomologist will talk about his exciting research on "Remote Sensing and Smart Use of Fertilizers to Manage Pests" at 4 p.m. Thursday, May 14 in Room 2045 of Bainer Hall, UC Davis campus.

Want to know more about social wasps?

Take a look at the insect below. "It's a cricket," you say. Correct. It is a cricket. But it doesn't belong there. Why? It's the wrong cricket. It's not a "field cricket" but a "house cricket." House crickets don't "belong" on flowers.

It's the easy way to do it. A carpenter bee heads for a foxglove blossom and drills a hole in the corolla to sip the nectar. This is "nectar robbing"--bypassing the pollination process and heading straight for the reward, the nectar. Honey bees are quick learners.