Bug Squad

A daily (M-F) blog launched Aug. 6, 2008 and about the wonderful world of insects and those who study them. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Tiny Gulf Fritillary butterfly egg at end of a tendril on a passionflower vine. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

It All Begins with an Egg

August 13, 2013
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's no surprise that students as young as kindergarteners are eager to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly--from an egg, to a caterpillar to a chrysalis to an adult. Complete metamorphosis. Complete awe.
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Female Gulf Fritillary butterfly dries her wings after emerging from her chrysalis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

It's a Girl!

August 12, 2013
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
At last! From an egg to a caterpillar to a chrysalis to a butterfly. And it's a girl! For several days we've been protecting a Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) chryalis on our passionflower vine (Passiflora) from predators.
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Praying mantis waits and waits. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Let Us Prey

August 9, 2013
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
So patient, so passionate. The praying mantis looked hungry last Thursday when it perched on a coneflower in the half-acre Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis. Where's breakfast? Where's lunch? Where's dinner? Nowhere to be found.
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A beewolf, or crabronid wasp, on buckwheat. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Wolf at Your Door

August 7, 2013
By Kathy Keatley Garvey
So there you are, a little sweat bee, foraging in the buckwheat. You sip some nectar, and suddenly, a flash of yellow. A wolf is at your door.
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