Bug Squad

As we gather to celebrate moths during National Moth Week (traditionally held the last full week in July and to be observed areawide on Saturday night, July 20 at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis), folks single out their favorites and non-favorites. For the beekeepers that's easy.

Let's go mothing! What's mothing? The National Moth Week website describes mothing as "a hobby for nature enthusiasts who use light or bait to attract moths to a location for observation and data collection.

Busy as a bee? No, as industrious as a Lepidopterist.

(Continued from the July 13th Bug Squad) Our resident crab spider, family Thomisidae, appears to be an extremely poor hunter. She waits, camouflaged in the lavender patch, as bees buzz around her. They dart away when she lunges at them.

A crab spider, family Thomisidae, lies motionless in a patch of lavender, waiting to ambush a honey bee. So here I am, a crab spider, as hungry as can be Does anyone out there feel sorry for me? "Yes," say the arachnologists. The apiculturists say "no.