That UC Davis beetle T-shirt is NOT more popular than The Beatles, but it sure is a big hit, both here and across the pond.

On July 30, 2024,  Bug Squad featured internationally celebrated entomologist Jeremy Nichol McNeil (1944-2024), a British-Canadian distinguished professor, researcher and author who died July 18 in Toronto, Ontario at age 79.

He was fondly known as "The Bug Man." He loved bugs and he loved collecting T-shirts. He had about 600 of them, and his family is selling them and donating the proceeds to his program, "Let's Talk Science" and to St. Joseph's Hospice of London.

One of the T-shirts he loved was "The Beetles,"  designed and sold by the UC Davis Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA). The illustration mimics The Beatles (George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and John Lennon) crossing Abbey Road. Meet "The Beetles" from the families of Phengogidae, Curculionidae, Cerambycidae and Scarabaeidae. Think glowworm beetles, snout beetles, long-horned beetles and scarab beetles. 

This week we contacted Jeremy McNeil's partner, Shelley Yeo, to inquire about his T-shirt collection and the opportunity to donate. Curious, we asked if "The Beetles" T-shirt is still available. She wrote back: "The beetle T-shirt is long gone and asked for many times!"

"Long gone and asked for many times" but it's still available on the EGSA site at https://mkt.com/UCDavisEntGrad/, as are other T-shirts, all designed by UC Davis graduate students. Yes, Santa likes bugs and he likes to deliver bug shirts!

This all came about after UC Davis distinguished professor Walter Leal posted an image on X (formerly Twitter) that showed McNeil wearing "The Beetles" T-shirt.  Leal wrote: "Jeremy McNeil (Nov. 20, 1944 – July 18, 2024) had 500+ entomology-themed T-shirts, but this is--without a doubt--the number one! I am slightly biased because I like beetles in the family Scarabaeidae, not because I'm a @ucdavis faculty of course."

"Jeremy died as he lived, tenacious and determined to the last--qualities that served him well as he blazed a trail through life," according to his obituary in Legacy.com. "He was recognised internationally as an eminent research scientist, publishing hundreds of papers, holding many positions of distinction and receiving countless accolades and awards. These include, among many others, President of the Royal Society of Canada, the Humboldt Research Fellowship in Germany, and the Order of Canada for his services to education. He was a passionate and enthusiastic educator his whole life, an ambassador equally at ease with everyone from VIPs to children."

Legacy.com noted that "He received several national awards for his outreach activities, often saying the publication that he was most proud of was What is an Insect?, a children's book he co-wrote with Let's Talk Science, which has been translated into five languages, and is used as a teaching aid in schools across Canada."

Jeremy, born in Tonbridge, England, but a resident of Canada since 1945, received his bachelor's degree in zoology, with honors, from the University of Western Ontario in 1969, and his doctorate in entomology and ecology from North Carolina State University in 1972. He served as a professor at Western Ontario from 2004 until his death.

McNeil would have been delighted with the Nov. 29th news story in The London Free Press headlined "The Bug Man' loved insect tees. They're now being sold to help good causes."  (See news story)

An excerpt: "Just through word of mouth among the hundreds of people whose lives McNeil touched, about half the T-shirts in the For the Love of Bugs campaign have been sold and Yeo and a crew of helpers have raised $5,300 for Let's Talk Science and St. Joseph's Hospice of London...The campaign is going public to sell the rest and continue supporting the two organizations. Let's Talk Science is a national organization that teaches children about science, one of McNeil's favourite causes, and the hospice is where he spent the past weeks of his life."

To view the shirts still available in the McNeil collection, access www.dananosella.com/album/f1siv7  

For information about how to get a T-shirt from the McNeil collection and donate, email Shelley Yeo at shelleyeo@hotmail.com. 

Good news on the monarch front. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced a proposal to list the monarch butterfly as a threatened species "with species-specific protections and flexibilities to encourage conservation" under Section 4(d) of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

"We are also proposing to designate critical habitat at theoverwintering grounds in California," said spokesperson Cal Robinson, public affairs specialist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office. 

 "Under the Endangered Species Act, our agency has flexibilities to tailor protections for threatened species to prevent the further decline of the species and facilitate recovery," he announced. "Our proposed 4(d) rule incentivizes proactive conservation efforts and allows actions that have beneficial or minimal impacts to monarchs and that do not threaten the species' overall population."

USFWS emphasized that this is a "proposed threatened designation for the monarch butterfly, and the monarch butterfly does not have federal protections at this time."

"Through March 2025, we are gathering input through a 90-day public comment period and encourage the submission of any new information. We will review these comments and then we will ultimately issue a final rule. If listed, protections would only go into place after the final rule is published."   

"The proposal to list the monarch butterfly and designate critical habitat will appear in the Federal Register on December 12, 2024. The entire proposed rule package can be found on regulations.gov by searching docket number FWS-R3-ES-2024-0137." 

USFWS will a host a virtual presentation for stakeholders to go over the proposal and take questions on Friday, Dec. 13, at noon (Pacific Time) and at 3 p.m. Eastern (12:00pm Pacific). Follow this link to join.  

For frequently asked questions about this proposal and additional information on the monarch butterfly,  access fws.gov/monarch  

Note that  "As the premiere conservation agency in the United States, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has the responsibility to ensure that the monarch migration phenomenon continues. It's going to take everyone--from government agencies to individuals to ensure a future filled with monarchs. You can do your part for monarchs in your backyard, in your back forty and along every back road."

We are all conservation partners. 

Back in 2011, three UC Davis entomology faculty members launched the campuswide Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology (RSPIB) to provide "academically strong and highly motivated undergraduates with a closely mentored research experience in biology."

The three founders and directors: UC Davis Distinguished Professor Jay Rosenheim, an insect ecologist (now emeritus as of June 2024); Professor Louie Yang, a community ecologist; and Professor Joanna Chiu, molecular geneticist and physiologist, and now chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology.

"Our goal is to develop a long-term mentoring relationship for students, to extend until the completion of the undergraduate program (usually 2 to 3 years)," Rosenheim said.

They are and they have. The success stories are amazing.

Meet Kaitai Liu, an outstanding entomology major, scholar, researcher, and volunteer. He is as dedicated to insect science as he is passionate.

As a RSPIB scholar, Kaitai joined the arachnid and systematics lab of Professor Jason Bond, who triples as the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in the Department of Entomology and Nematology; director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology; and associate dean of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences. The Bond lab motto: "Studying arthropod diversity to inspire appreciation for life on Earth."

It's a perfect fit.

Kaitai, born and raised in Beijing, China, and a 2021 graduate of Bejing Yuying School ("Fun fact: Gavin Newsom visited my school last year"), credits his grandfather with sparking his interest in insects.

"When I was about 4 or 5, my grandfather wanted to keep me away from television and video games, so he took me outside and caught me bugs like cicadas and grasshoppers to play with," Kaitai recalled. "That was how I got into the world of insects, and somehow, I became really into insects. My parents supported me after noticing my fascination with insects. They always took me to the mountains to collect insects and observe nature, and they encouraged me to learn from books and the Internet. Jean-Henri Casmir Fabre became my childhood idol after I read his book Souvenirs entomologiques--of course, it was a Chinese children's book version--and I gradually formed the idea of becoming an entomologist like Fabre. I guess that is why I am still super interested in insect taxonomy now."

Kaitai's initial plan was to attend a university in China. "In high school, I participated in the Chinese National Biology Olympiad, known as a super difficult, highly competitive  event, and to prepare for it, I read more than 30 college-level textbooks in a year," Kaitai related.

Next: which university to study entomology?

Kaitai chose UC Davis for its highly ranked entomology program.

He's now 21 and it's been a busy three years at UC Davis.  He was recently featured in UC Davis piece on “Student Entomologists Gain Hands-on Skills in Insect Biology.” Wrote writer José Vadi: “Bond's lab matches Liu's passion--using systematics and taxonomy to describe and define new species--as well as studying the evolution of spiders and millipedes.” Kaitai holds at 3.95 GPA.

To date, Kaitai has been involved in three research projects: from millipedes to turret spiders to the California Insect Biodiversity and Barcode Project, the latter part of Gov. Gavin Newsom's executive order on climate change to document all insect life in California:

• Investigation of the skeletal musculature structure and homology of millipedes' gonopods: "The gonopod is the male millipede's copulatory organ that is derived from walking legs, which is important for species identification," Kaitai explained. "I helped construct 3D models of gonopods from micro-CT images using ITK-SNAP and then compared and homologized the structure of the sclerites and muscles in different millipede groups using 3D visualizations."
  
  
• Evaluation of morphological variations and population structure in Atypoides riversii, commonly known as the California turret spider. "It's an endemic mygalomorph spider to northern and central California. Phylogeographic studies show that A. riversi is separated into multiple parapatric and allopatrically distributed populations, indicating that A. riversi is a species complex. My job was to generate somatic morphological data (length and width of the head, length of legs, etc.) from female specimens from different populations using a dissecting microscope equipped with Analysis Suite Software. Then, we applied Principal Component Analysis to a continuous variable dataset to evaluate morphological divergence in light of the species tree."
  
  
• California Insect Biodiversity and Barcode Project: This state-funded, collaborative project with the Bond lab and the Bohart Museum, aims to document all the insect species throughout California. "My job is to select specimens collected in California from the Bohart Museum of Entomology collection based on their quality and age, then confirm the identification and the validity of the scientific name of the specimens. I also relocate and correct misidentified specimens and outdated names. Lastly, I capture a series of images of the specimens using the Giga-Macro imaging system and stack the images with the Zerene Stacker." To date, he has prepared more than 700 specimens for the project. Next step: to collect tissues from the specimens and preserve them for DNA extraction and sequencing.

Future plans? Obtain a doctorate in entomology, become a professor, and specialize in rain beetles.

"I want to study rain beetles (genus Pleocoma, family Pleocomidae) for my PhD," Kaitai said. "There are about 25 species of rain beetles and they are only found in North America. There are about 18 endemic species in California. I want to study them because each species is highly restricted in a certain geographical range, and they only emerge in the winter after rain. The females are flightless. All these features indicate that there might be cryptic species within these named species. I want to study their phylogenetic relationship, speciation, and phenology in response to climate change since they highly rely on rain."

His primary activities at UC Davis focus on insects. A core member of the UC Davis Entomology Club, he has participated in multiple camping and collecting trips, including three collecting trips to Arizona. He helps plan the itinerary, and "I organize, drive and cook." In the meantime, he has built a large personal insect collection. "I spent a lot of my free time looking for bugs on campus and around Davis."

Kaitai also participates in the annual UC Davis Picnic Day Parade with fellow members, and loves to introduce the public to insects. This year during the Picnic Day entomological activities at Briggs Hall, he taught visitors how to use an insect net.

With his passion for entomology comes his passion for volunteerism. At the Bohart Museum of Entomology open houses, he enjoys introducing everyone--from toddlers to senior citizens--to the live petting zoo, which includes Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas.

"It is a really cool experience," Kaitai said of helping out at the Bohart Museum open houses. "I feel like this is a way to contribute to entomology. I like to see people overcome their entomophobia after learning about insects, and it makes me happy when I see people eager to learn about insects."

Do you know what apivectoring is?

Bee scientist Elina Lastro Niño, associate professor of Cooperative Extension, Apiculture, and a member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (ENT) faculty, defines it in a recent edition of Bee Culture. This was part of her series of articles about UC Davis bee research and Extension programming, as requested by editor Jerry Hayes.

"This simply means using bees, specifically from genus Apis, to deliver a biocontrol agent for controlling a variety of pests and pathogens associated with crops," she wrote.

Niño recounted that she learned the technology from integrated pest management specialist Frank Zalom, now a UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus (on recall). Zalom is an internationally recognized entomologist who served as president of the 7000-member Entomological Society of America (ESA) and is an Honorary Member of ESA, the organization's highest honor. (One could write a book about Zalom's expertise and activities! But see this article which chronicles much of his work.)

But back to Niño's article. "He (Zalom) was involved in projects using honey bees to deliver biocontrol agent Trichoderma spp. for control of Botrytis on strawberries in Southern California," she wrote. "He explained a fairly simple, but sophisticated process and I was hooked."

"I submitted a couple of proposals for projects primarily targeting brown rot blossom blight, a potentially devastating disease (caused by Monilinia laxa) occurring during almond bloom," Niño continued. "Considering the impact that the almond industry has on California agriculture and the beekeeping industry we really wanted to focus our efforts on bringing this technology into the almond orchards. The incidence of disease increases during particularly wet blooming season and growers must rely on use of fungicides for control. The goal of the project was to boost bloom coverage using honey bees already in the orchards for pollination, potentially reducing the need for fungicide sprays and improving pollinator protection, as well as minimizing development of resistance in the almond pathogens."

Niño related that her first couple of proposals were rejected, as is common, "although the reviewers had many valuable points of input for improving the project." She reached out to UC Davis plant pathologist Florent Trouillas and UC Davis entomologist and microbiologist Rachel Vannette "and we applied again. This time we received seed funding from UC Davis via the Academic Federation Innovative Developmental Award and the Almond Board of California."

Niño went on to define apivectoring more precisely as "a fairly straightforward process that uses, in our case, managed bees such as bumble bees and honey bees to transfer powder form of a biological control agent from flower to flower. It capitalizes on characteristics of a good pollinator: they obviously fly from flower to flower and they are fuzzy allowing the biological agent and its carrier powder to stick to the body of a bee. Commonly, the biocontrol agent is a microorganism (e.g., bacteria, fungus) which is mixed with a carrier powder such as starch, and placed in a dispenser that is attached to the entrance of a hive."

"As the bees walk out of the hive they go through this dispenser collecting the powder on their hairs, and as they fly from flower to flower the powder containing the biocontrol agent is deposited on flowers they visit as they collect pollen and nectar. Once the bees comes back to the hive they reenter the hive through a different entrance so the biocontrol is not wasted. This actually opens up another application possibility where the returning bees could walk through another dispenser containing, for example, a biocontrol agent for Varroa mite control. I hope you now understand why I am so excited about this technology which has actually been around for a while and has been used fairly successfully in other crops (e.g., strawberries, apples, tomatoes, sunflowers, canola) for control of both pathogen and insect pests."

In her article, Niño shares her experiences at a 2019 apivectoring workshop in Serbia, hosted at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Biology. Read her entire article on apivectoring at https://www.beeculture.com/the-uc-davis-series-2/

Niño, who holds a doctorate in entomology from The Pennsylvania State University, joined the UC Davis/UC Agriculture and Natural Resources program in 2014, replacing retiring Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen (1944-2022). In 2016 she founded and continues to direct the much-heralded UC Master Beekeeper Program.