Bug Squad

"Where is the love for bugs?" science writer Rachel Nuwer asked in a recent article published in the New York Times. Well, there is that "ick" factor.

Lynn S. Kimsey is an entomologist, and has been one for most of her life. So begins the National Science Foundation's recent LiveScience feature on the UC Davis entomologist. It's an interesting piece.

When self-described "rock artist" Donna Billick of Davis created the morphologically correct honey bee sculpture for the Hagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven at UC Davis, she expected it to be a focal point. And it is.

What's that? When award-winning photographer Teresa Willis of Vacaville encountered a red caterpillar on a dirt road at about 6000 feet in a canyon north of Paradise Valley, Nev., she did what photographers do--she captured an image of it.

Ants are such tiny critters. But they're much more than that. Much more. Ant specialist Brian Fisher, an entomologist with the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, describes ants as "industrious, tenacious workers who live in colonies and obey a hierarchy of rulers.