Bug Squad

The light brown apple moth (Epiphyas postvittana)--it's not your typical invader. UC Berkeley professor Nick Mills will head to UC Davis on Wednesday, Feb. 20 to speak on just that: "The Light Brown Apple Moth--Not a Typical Invader.

It's nice to remember the honey bee on Valentine's Day. You'll see many Valentine cards inscribed with "Bee My Valentine" and featuring a photo of a bee. Many of those photos depict a queen bee, the mother of all bees in the hive. To be a queen, she'll need to be fed royal jelly as a larva.

Plants communicate. They do. Ecologist Richard Karban, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology, points out that one of the simplest forms of communication involves shade. When a plant is shaded, it grows away from the plant or other object that's shading it.

Thrips, those tiny little critters about a millimeter long or less that wreak economic havoc to U.S. agricultural crops--not to mention crops worldwide--may have met their match. They're under attack by entomologist Diane Ullman of UC Davis and her team of eight other investigators.

Everyone recognizes the mighty monarch butterfly.