If you're addicted to insects or insect photography, you'll want to see the international award-winning images on the Insect Salon website. Each year the Peoria (Ill.) Camera Club hosts the contest in conjunction with the Entomological Society of America (ESA).

The subjects are primarily insects but can also include spiders and related arthropods, such as barnacles, crabs, lobsters, shrimp, centipedes and millipedes. For your work to be accepted in the Insect Salon showcase, it must score at least 12 points. Those who score 15 are selected medalists.

The ESA, a professional insect-science organization of some 7000 members, showcases these images at its annual conferences. This year's conference, set Nov. 5-8 in Denver, Colo., is appropriately themed   "Ignite. Inspire. Innovate."

The winning photographers this year represent 16 countries: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Malayasia, Slovenia, South Africa, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and the United States. Some images are from ESA members, and some are from alumni of the BugShot Macro Photography Workshops.

Malaysia-based photographers anchored the winners' circle:

• The best-of-show medal went to Tommy Teh of Malaysia for "Hunger For Food 3"
• The medal for most unusual: Andrews Ruggen of Argentina for "Convivencia"
• The medal for best storytelling: Alek Low of Malaysia for "Craving For Food"
• The medal for best image from a non-ESA member: Kawawa Wong Yik Siang of Malaysia for "Hungry Jumping Spider"
• The medal for best image from an ESA member: Wei Fu of Ontario, Canada for "Bite Tightly"
• The medal for best image from a Peoria Club Camera member: John Weidman of Peoria, Ill. for "Argiope Securing Grasshopper"

You can view them all by accessing the Insect Salon website and then clicking on the image titles. The site includes the name of the photographer, city/country of residence, and the title of the image.

Due to copyright concerns, I'm not posting the winning images, but posting two of mine that were accepted for the 2017 Insect Salon showcase:

• "Faster than a Speeding Bullet" shows a long-horned bee (Melissodes agilis) in flight, speeding over a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia). This image received one of the 19 honorable mentions. (Image taken with a Nikon D500 camera with a 70-180mm lens. Settings: ISO 2500, f-stop 16, and shutter speed of 1/1000 of a second)
• "Under Attack!" shows a long-horned bee (Melissodes agilis) targeting a Red Admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta), also on Tithonia. (Image taken with a Nikon D500 with a 70-180mm lens. Settings: ISO 2000, f-stop 7, and shutter speed of 1/3200 of a second.)

These might inspire you to enter the 2018 Insect Salon competition.

It's a Macro World out there!

Repeat after me. “I am NOT afraid of spiders. I am NOT afraid of spiders. I am NOT afraid of spiders.”

That sign, “I am NOT afraid of spiders,” greeted Louisa Lo, executive administrative assistant for Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, when she arrived to work a week ago at her office on the "garden level" of Briggs Hall.

Her recently retired colleague and good friend, Shirley Gee, principal investigator, lecturer, mentor and the longtime manager of the Hammock research lab, saw the sign in a local store and purchased it for her.

Halloween is gone, but the sign isn't, and the spiders may not be.

And, yes, despite the sign, she says she's still a “little” afraid of spiders. A touch of arachnophobia.

And why does she not like spiders? “Spiders are creepy!” she said, smiling. “Actually it's not only spiders I don't like, but almost all kind of bugs, especially those with multiple legs! THEY CRAWL ALL OVER THE PLACE! And ironically, I am working in the Entomology Department!”

She works for Bruce Hammock, who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center. Highly recognized by his peers for his research, inventions, teaching and mentoring, Hammock is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors. which honors academic invention and encourages translations of inventions to benefit society. His many programs keep her busy.

Louisa is known as a treasure in the office--multi-skilled, personable and always helpful.  "Louisa never failed to ask if she could help me," Gee recalled. "I'm going to miss her as a colleague, but mostly as a friend!"

Said Hammock: "Louisa brightened the office since the day she arrived.  She somehow accomplishes the hard work of keeping the lab running under an appearance of always being ready to help.  She makes new people feel welcome and lets alumni know they are missed.  She even reminds me what day it is and when it is time to go home."

Lo considers this her dream job. “I love meeting and working with people with different backgrounds!” The Hammock lab draws scientists from all over the world. The 29-member international Hammock lab currently includes 1 undergraduate student, 1 graduate student, 7 postdoctorates, 7 research scientists, 8 visiting scholars and 3 staff. They represent 13 countries, including the United States, Turkey, Germany, China, France, India, Japan, Ukraine, Korea, Hong Kong, Canada, Brazil and Sweden.

Lo, who joined the Hammock lab on Aug. 17, 2011, will soon be moving to Michigan where her husband, Kin Sing Stephen Lee, a postdoc in the Hammock lab, has accepted a junior faculty position in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Michigan State University.

Is Lee afraid of spiders? "He better not be afraid of spiders," she said. "He is the one relocating them for me if any are in our house!" 

Lo's last day is Dec. 16 at UC Davis. She already has a position awaiting her. “It will be a very similar position as what I am doing right now except it is in a department setting (Department of Family Medicine at Michigan State University) rather than working for a single unit,” Lo said. “I will be responsible of managing accounts, helping with grant proposals and providing administrative support to the department. “

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Louisa came to the United States in 2002 to attend college. She received a degree in advertising “so my first job was a copywriter in an advertising firm in Hong Kong. Then I moved back to United States when my husband was finishing up grad school.”

Then the couple moved to Davis in 2010. Louisa worked as a warehouse associate and an office manager in a clinic before accepting her current position with the Hammock lab.

She and her husband are enjoying life with their toddler son, Skyler, who is just learning to walk, run and ride a tricycle.

Odds are Skyler won't be wearing a Spiderman outfit any time soon. 

We love looking at insect images.

Drum roll...the winning images for the Entomological Society of America's Photo Salon, a global competition, have just been announced. They will be shown at the ESA's meeting, Nov. 15-18 in Minneapolis, Minn. (The ESA theme this year is "Synergy in Science: Partnering for Solutions.")

You can see the list of winners and their images here: http://www.peoriacameraclub.com/Steve/Html/sect_1.htm

You'll see the best of show, a stunning butterfly image taken in Croatia. You'll see pests, prey, and predators. You'll see insects having a "happy meal." You'll see bug porn, or insects love caught in the act of reproducing more of the critters we love to shoot. You'll see insects you've never seen before--and probably will never see again.

They're spectacular. They're awe-inspiring. They're amazing.

As an aside, two of my photos were selected for the Photo Salon: One is of a bee fly that I titled "Pollen Power" and the other of two praying mantids ("Giddy Up").

Next year, you enter! Track that robber fly, follow that moth, and dash after that Blue Dasher. And don't forget the spiders. They're not insects, but arthropod images are also welcome in the Photo Salon competition.

If you want to learn more about macro photography, check out the Bug Shot Macro workshops at http://bugshot.net/. The instructors include noted insect photographers:

Alex Wild
John Abbott
Thomas Shahan
Piotr Naskrecki
Nicky Bay

We attended the four-day workshop May 7-10, 2015 at Hastings Reserve, a biological field station owned and operated by the University of California, Berkeley. Texas-based Alex Wild  and John Abbott and Oregon-based Thomas Shahan served as the instructors and shared their knowledge and research.  By the way, Wild received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis and recently moved from Illinois to be the curator of entomology in the College of Natural Sciences, University of Austin. Wild specializes in ants; Abbott, dragonflies; and Shahan, jumping spiders.  But they, of course, focus on other arthropods, too.

It was an incredible four days. More will come.

Ready, set, focus! Oh, no, where did that yellow-faced bumble bee go?

In Journalism 101, students learn that news stories need the Four Ws--who, what, when, where and why" and the H--"how come."

But when it comes to UC Davis Picnic Day 101, the "101" doesn't mean inexperience. This is the 101st annual celebration, which means UC Davis has been doing this for a century.

It's an event billed as entertaining, educational and informative--and it is. Plus, it's just plain fun!

Longtime friends and family get to hug ya. Entomologists get to bug ya. Visitors will see plenty of insects and other arthropods from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at two sites: Briggs Hall on Kleiber Hall Drive and the Bohart Museum of Entomology on Crocker Lane.





Theme of the campuswide picnic is “The Heart of Our Community,” but over at the Bohart Museum, the theme is “The Good, the Bad and the Bugly.” The museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, will feature pollinators. The museum houses nearly 8 million specimens. It also houses a live “petting zoo,” comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and a rose-haired tarantula named Peaches, a crowd favorite.

At Briggs Hall, a new event is the Pollinator Pavilion, where visitors can see and learn about bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Pollination ecologist/graduate student Margaret “Rei” Scampavia is coordinating the project. “We're going to have painted lady butterflies, monarchs, male blue orchard bees, and a live bumblebee colony,” she said. Other events at the Pollinator Pavilion will include puppet shows, a chance to practice pollinator observations, museum specimens, and information on how individuals can help support healthy pollinator populations.

Favorite displays or activities returning to Briggs are the “Bug Doctor” booth, where an entomologist "is in" and will answer questions about insects; American cockroach races, where visitors can cheer their favorite cockroach to victory; maggot art, where participants can dip a maggot into non-toxic, water-based paint and let it crawl on white paper.

Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey will portray “Dr. Death,” showing methods used in forensic entomology in 122 Briggs. The Phil Ward lab will assemble a display on the incredible diversity of ants. The Sharon Lawler lab will display aquatic insects and answer any questions about them.

Visitors can sample six different varietals of honey at a honey tasting table in the Briggs courtyard. The flavors are coffee blossom, meadowfoam blossom, buckwheat, creamed clover, cotton and chestnut,  said Elina Niño, Extension apiculturist. A bee observation hive will be set up in across from the courtyard, where Niño and staff research associate Billy Synk will answer questions about bees.

Also at Briggs: graduate student Stacy Hishinuma and forest entomologist Steve Seybold, a chemical ecologist with the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Davis, and an affiliate of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will display forest insects. Medical entomology graduate students will set up displays about diseases vectored by mosquitoes and other insects.  The Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District will provide an educational exhibit about mosquito abatement. Exhibits also will include such topics as fly fishing/fly-tying.

The UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) will be giving away lady beetles, aka ladybugs, in front of Briggs Hall. They will answer questions about insects and display many of their books.

The Graduate Student Entomology Association (GMSA) and the Entomology Club will be out in force, coordinating and staffing the many insect activities. If you like bugs, you can buy an entomology t-shirt or have a bug painted on your face. The Bohart Museum also will be selling t-shirts and other items in its gift shop, which is open year-around.

If you're going to the parade, which starts at 9:30 a.m., be sure to check out the Entomology Club's float. It will not be an "itsy bitsy spider." It will be one ritsy gigantic spider!   Following the parade, the float will be showcased in front of Briggs Hall.

What a day it promises to be...the good, the bad, and the bugly...