Bug Squad

It all started with Robert Kimsey's fly research on Alcatraz Island.

The names are delightful. There's a fairy moth named Adela thorpella. Its namesake: native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis. Who wouldn't want to be Adela thorpella? The name just rolls off the tongue.

Pop goes the Pieris. So wrote professor Art Shapiro of the UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology from his office in Storer Hall. Yes, he won his own contest again.

You don't usually see "honey bees" and "malaria" in the same sentence.

It was lovely day today, in more ways than one. During the lunch hour, we stopped by the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, University of California, Davis, and discovered more than just blossoms in the planter box filled with fava beans.