Bug Squad

Emcee Tom Turpin of Purdue University stood at the podium and acknowledged he might mispronounce an entomology student's name. "If it sounds anything like your name and Im looking at you, thats you.

So you're out roaming the countryside or cityscape in Solano, Yolo or Sacramento counties at the start of the new year and you encounter a Cabbage White butterfly.

You'd never know by his stunning art work that Christopher Marley once hated insects. (At right: a portion of his spectacular "Coleoptera Mosaic.

Most of us just finished a whirlwind of olfaction and taste during the holidays, but in the Walter Leal lab at the University of California, Davis, it's a full-time commitment.

We can learn from the ants. Indeed, we can take lessons from the ants, according to ecologist Rob Dunn (right), assistant professor in the Department of Biology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh.