Bug Squad

Sometimes the beauty of a bee simply takes your breath away. Especially when the late afternoon sun backlights it. Yes! All's right with the world. For just a moment in time, there are no pests, parasites or pesticides. There are no viruses, diseases, malnutrition and stress.

What's that little green bug on the head of the Gaillardia? It's soft-bodied. It's miniscule. It's sucking plant juices. An aphid! We captured an image of this little green bugger shortly after we purchased several plants from an area nursery.

It was not a good day to be a honey bee. But it was a good day to be a spider. For days we watched honey bees, sweat bees and syrphid flies visit a patch of alyssum and African daisies in our yard. Their floral visits did not go unnoticed.

That's one gigantic wasp! The new species that Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis, discovered on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi measures a whopping two and a half inches long. That's the male "warrior wasp.

Collembola! Watch the springtails spring! Over the last several days, Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology at the University of Caifornia, Davis, has patrolled a UC Davis sidewalk checking out a huge volume of springtails.