Bug Squad

Santa Claus and the monarch butterfly share a commonality. Both are icons, easily recognizable. One may become extinct. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Dec. 10 its plans to add the monarch butterfly to its list of threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

Back in 2010, UC Cooperative Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen (1944-2022) of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and yours truly, department communications specialist, wondered why no insects appear in "The Twelve Days of Christmas." Zero. Zilch. Nada.

If you have some free time during the holidays--free time, what's that?--and you're interested in insects, you'll want to watch a series of UC Davis insect "infomercials.

Suds for a bug? A bug for some suds? The annual Beer for a Butterfly contest, launched in 1972 by butterfly guru Art Shapiro, now a UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus, gets underway Jan. 1.

We're delighted that microbial ecologist Danielle Rutkowski, a UC Davis doctoral alumna and now a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Iowa State University, has just received a Royal Entomological Society Early Career Entomology Award, Highly Commended, for her research piece, Bee-Ass...