Bug Squad

It was great to see Robert E. Page Jr., emeritus professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, be selected as one of the 10 fellows of the 6000-member Entomological Society of America for 2012.

Walter Leal isnt participating in the Olympics, but he medaled just the same. It was not for athletic prowess, but for scholarly achievementsthe scientific equivalent of an international gold medal.

The thing about predators and prey is that it's the nature of things. Take spiders. The many different species have different methods of catching, killing, confining and eating their prey.

If your hummingbird feeders are filled with that oh-so-tantalizing sweet sugary syrup, you may be attracting not only hummers, but honey bees, too. In fact, the bees may be crowding out the hummers.

It's a native bee. It's a pollinator. And it's a leafcutter. This morning we admired this female leafcutter bee, Megachile fidelis, as identified by native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis.