Bug Squad

Praying, preying, or peering? This female praying mantis, a Stagmomantis limbata, selects a patch of red Lantana to watch for pollinators. Her spiked forelegs resting, her eyes always watching but her body as still as a stone, she makes an incredible predator portrait.

Do you know how to spread the wings of a butterfly specimen? It's not as easy as it looks, but entomologist Jeff Smith, curator of the Bohart Museum of Entomology's Lepidoptera collection, makes it look easy. If you attend the Bohart Museum open house, set from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Sept.

The date of Sept. 28 is significant. It's the birthday anniversary of noted entomologist Richard "Doc" Bohart (1913-2007), founder of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis.

It's great to see two high school seniors spend their summer doing research in a UC Davis nematology lab as young scholars in the UC Davis Young Scholars Program (YSP) YSP is a six-week summer residential program that introduces several dozen high-achieving high school students to original research...

Wings up! Let's go! The monarch fall migration is underway. "Unlike most other insects in temperate climates, monarch butterflies cannot survive a long cold winter. Instead, they spend the winter in roosting spots," explains Monarch Watch.