Bug Squad

Quick! When you think of non-native species, what's your first reaction? That they're Public Enemy No.

Have you hugged your favorite pollinator today? It's National Pollinator Week, and you're allowed to do that this week. Actually, any time you feel the inclination. Honey bees, bumble bees, wool carder bees, leafcutter bees, sweat bees--they're all out there, ready for a hug.

Who celebrated the most? Homo sapiens or Apis mellifera? It was difficult to tell.

Tabatha Yang saw it first. She's the education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis. What she saw--in a grassy field at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, west of the central campus--was a golden ladybug, aka lady beetle.

A streak of gray, but don't wash it away. The gray hairstreak is a butterfly. We spotted this delicate-looking butterfly (Strymon melinus) on a red pincushion flower (Scabiosa) this week in Winters, Yolo County. Gray on red. Fauna on flora. A Strymon on a Scabiosa.