- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Perhaps!
We get a kick out of the UC Davis Entomology Graduate Student Association's praying mantis T-shirt, "Here for a Good Time, Not a Long Time." A female mantis has just lopped off the head of her suitor and is finishing her feast.
Gotta love those mantises! We remember spotting a Stagmomantis limbata male and female "getting busy" in our Vacaville garden. No heads rolled that time...but another time one did.
EGSA members design and sell insect- and arachnid-themed T-shirts and hoodies, as well as stickers. They can be ordered online at https://mkt.com/UCDavisEntGrad/.
Doctoral candidate Lexie Martin of the lab of community ecologist Rachel Vannette, associate professor and vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, serves as EGSA president.
Treasurer Iris Quayle of the arachnology lab of Professor Jason Bond coordinates the EGSA store.
Other popular T-shirts include "The Beetles" (featuring four beetles mimicking The Beatles walking across Abbey Road) and "Bugbie" (a take-off of the Barbie movie craze but spotlighting a pink insect, a rosy maple moth, Dryocampa rubicunda.)
Among the many EGSA t-shirts:
- “Would You Love Me If I Was a Worm?"
- "Hang in There: (a pseudoscorpion hanging onto a fly leg)
- "Bee Haw" (honey bee as a cowboy)
- "They See Me Rollin'": (dung beetle)
- "Cicada Amp"
- "Whip Scorpion"
“We now have hoodies in the Bee-Haw, Whip Scorpion, and Worm designs and tank tops in the Cicada Amp and Dung Beetle designs,” Quayle says.
It's a great cause: (1) supporting the graduate students (2) contributing to the appreciation of insects and arachnids, and (3) helping Santa with his "nice" list.
