Bug Squad

What's that caterpillar? This little fellow (or gal) was munching--quite contentedly, thank you--on the leaves of an aspen tree. The homeowner didn't take too kindly to the critter defoliating his prized tree, newly purchased in Oregon and newly planted in Vacaville, Calif.

It's not often you see a monarch butterfly and a digger bee in the same photo. Such was the case on a recent visit to a lantana patch at a west Vacaville home.

The folks at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis,call them "jungle gems." And "gems" they are. They're New World orchid bees (Euglossine bees), which museum director Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, describes as "the most beautiful bees in the world.

Honey bees on blanket flowers (Gaillardia). Honey bees on Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia). The Girls of Autumn....not unlike The Boys of Summer...

We're accustomed to seeing a solitary monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) flitting around a garden. But millions of them? It was interesting to read the National Public Radio piece (Oct. 4) on Flight: A Few Million Little Creatures That Could.