How many of us can trace our childhood interest in insects back to lady beetles, aka ladybugs?

They're among the most recognizable of insects. And excellent predators of aphids and other soft-bodied insects!

"There are about 5,000 different species of ladybugs in the world," according to National Geographic. "These much loved critters are also known as lady beetles or ladybird beetles. They come in many different colors and patterns, but the most familiar in North America is the seven-spotted ladybug, with its shiny, red-and-black body. In many cultures, ladybugs are considered good luck."

Morgan Myrhe, a UC Davis graduating senior in entomology who won the Citation for Outstanding Performance in Entomology at her commencement last week, says that in elementary school, she frequently brought "ladybugs into the classroom" in her pockets and "established a worm club with her friends."

Morgan, born and raised in San Diego, said her educational journey followed a nontraditional path. WIth very limited high school experience due to a severe illness, she began attending Palomar Community College at 16 years old. While in community college, she worked at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park and had her two children, Galileo and Esmerelda.

Morgan currently works as a math and science tutor at Pioneer High School and as an undergraduate research assistant in the Ian Grettenberger lab at UC Davis. She plans to obtain her science teaching credentials and master's degree in education and to "continue exploring my love for entomology by introducing my future students to the subject."

"Morgan is an exemplary student research assistant and has been integral to us accomplishing our research goals," Grettenberger said, adding "She has often gone above and beyond the expectations of the position, even going out of her way to keep data and equipment organized. She is the type of research assistant that thinks ahead to do tasks even better than whatever instructions she was given. She thinks critically and operates very independently. She is also an excellent student and her work in our lab and 'job' as a student is all on top of being a parent as well." 

Katherine "Katie" Hostetler,  named the Outstanding Senior in Entomology, remembers "gardening with my mom and picking up snails, isopods, and other creatures while playing in the dirt. I also volunteered at the local botanical garden in high school, which confirmed my interest as I got to hang out with insects while gardening!"

Professor Sharon Lawler, an aquatic entomologist in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology who retired in January, nominated Katie for the award. "I worked with Katie through the Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology (RSPIB)," Lawler said. "She participated in graduate student Kyle Phillip's project on how wetland plant decomposition supports aquatic food webs in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Suisun Marsh). Katie rapidly became an essential member of the research team, which included John Durand as a principal investigator and Kyle's co-advisor."

"Katie learned numerous techniques in aquatic ecology," Lawler said. "She ultimately designed and led her own laboratory experiment on how amphipods contribute to nutrient recycling in wetlands through shredding and consuming different kinds of detritus. She is working on a draft manuscript for a peer-reviewed journal stemming from her work." 

Katie plans to remain in Davis and "continue working at the Center for Watershed Sciences in invertebrate research!"

Congratulations to Katie and Morgan! 

Mortarboards are really "wizard hats."

Just ask Griffin Alberts, 3, whose mother, Charlotte Herbert Alberts, received her doctorate in entomology June 15 at the UC Davis Graduate Studies Program commencement ceremony in the University Credit Union Center.

Charlotte donned a dark blue robe decorated with a gold-and-black butterfly pin and topped it off with a matching blue mortarboard, "the wizard hat." 

Charlotte, who enrolled in the UC Davis doctoral program in 2015, described the ceremony "as especially meaningful and heartwarming." During her studies, she

• married her sweetheart, George Alberts, in 2018;
• moved cross-country to Silver Spring, Md., in 2020, during the COVID pandemic;
• birthed two children (Griffin, now 3, and Marcy, 7 months); and
• published two of her dissertation chapters on assassin flies, also known as robber flies. 

Griffin could hardly wait to see "Mama become a wizard." Following the commencement, he delighted in trying on "Mama's Wizard Hat." The next day, when his grandparents asked him his favorite part of the ceremony, he quickly responded: "Watching Mama become a wizard!"

"It was great closure to walk across the stage!"Alberts said. "It was a non-linear adventure, with many bumps and hurdles along the way. But it's amazing feeling to finally cross the stage and be done! Especially with my parents, husband George, and my children watching!"  (Watch the ceremony on YouTube)

Robber Fly Database. For the past decade, Charlotte's scientific world has revolved around systematics, phylogenetics, insect biotechnology, genomics and speciation. At UC Davis, she worked on the identification and database of the assassin fly collection (family Asilidae) at the Bohart Museum of Entomology (August 2015 to June 2021), while serving as secretary of the Entomology Graduate Student Association; creating designs for T-shirt and sweatshirts sold in the Bohart Museum gift shop; and engaging in numerous illustration projects.

Just recently Charlotte served as a teaching assistant for the Entomology 001 course, “Art, Science and the World of Insects," taught by UC Davis distinguished professor/artist Diane Ullman.

"Charlotte is an excellent scientist and fantastic artist," said Ullman, who chaired the UC Davis Department of Entomology in 2004-2005.

Ullman served as Charlotte's principal investigator and advisor. Thesis committee members Torsten Dikow and Jason Bond, also advised her. Dikow is a research entomologist and curator of Diptera and aquatic insects, Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, and Professor Bond is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. 

Native of New Hampshire. A native of Plainfield, N.H, Charlotte is a 2015 graduate of St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y., where she majored in conservation biology. It was there that she developed an interest in assassin flies.

Why assassin flies? “I chose assassin flies because I fell in love researching them as an undergraduate at St. Lawrence University,” she said. ‘They are fascinating flies and I like that they can immediately change someone's perspective of flies. Assassin flies are venomous, predatory flies that eat other insects! And they sometimes even look exactly like the creatures they eat. Example: bumble bees!”

Charlotte interned at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in the summer of 2014, working with Dikow on "identifying-to-genus" specimens of Asiliae. A graduate student fellowship followed (July-September 2016), with Dikow guiding her as her advisor.

"I currently work at the Smithsonian, publishing my last two chapters of my dissertation," Charlotte said. "I'm applying to post docs in the fall and taking the summer to enjoy time with my kids as much as possible!"

Looking back, the newly capped Dr. Alberts reiterated that she couldn't have done it without the support of her family, friends and advisors. Last year, following the publication of her first journal article (Zookeys: A New Species of Saropogon Loew, 1847 (Diptera, Asilidae) from Arizona, with a Review of the Nearctic Species North of Mexico), she enthused: “My family brings so much joy to my life, and fuels me to push forward, one step at a time!”

All those steps led to another cross-country trip, this time a return trip from Maryland to California to receive that much-anticipated doctorate.

And to don that "wizard hat."

If a wizard is defined as "a very skillful or talented person," then Griffin absolutely nailed it.

"Mama," he says matter-of-factly, "is a wizard."

It's 3:47 p.m., on Sunday, June 4. I am watching a honey bee nectaring on a zinnia in our pollinator garden. She collects, lingers and then leaves. 

It was like (A) Apis mellifera to (Z) zinnia.  I thought: "A honey bee, Apis mellifera, is leaving a pink zinnia after gathering nectar and pollen for her colony. Everyone must leave what they love to become who they want to be or what they want to become."

So it is with commencements. Molecular geneticist-physiologist Joanna Chiu, professor and vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, captured this image at a PhD commencement today and posted it on Twitter: "What do we have here? Congratulations Dr. Cai, Dr. Griebenow, Dr. Lewald and Dr. Tabuloc!"

That would be Yao Cai, Christine Tabuloc and Kyle Lewald of the Chiu lab and Zachary Griebenow of the Phil Ward lab. Former doctoral students, then doctoral candidates...and now PhDs...

Kyle? Member of the Integrative Genetics and Genomics Graduate Group. Others? Entomology Graduate Group. 

Professor Chiu captured it perfectly! What a proud and glorious moment!

You might not expect to see Anthocharis sara sara in McCormack Hall during the 74th annual Solano County Fair, Vallejo, June 15-18. 

But you will. It's a photograph titled "Painted Wings" by Regan Van Tuyl, 13 of Dixon.

UC Davis distinguished professor Art Shapiro identified it as the ventral side of a Sara Orange-Tip (See https://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/butterfly/anthocharis/sara-sara) 

“The Sara Orange-Tip is common in foothill and lower montane habitats (Coast Range/Bay Area and Sierran West slope) but is hardly ever encountered in the Central Valley,” Shapiro writes on his website, Art's Butterfly World. “It ‘flies a bea' along roadsides and streamsides in foothill woodland and montane coniferous forest, and along the bases of cliffs in canyons. It often flies in and out of dappled light and shade but is less shade-tolerant than the Gray-Veined White. In the Sierra Nevada it is rarely seen above 5000' (except at Donner Pass, where it is seen nearly every year at the West end), replaced upslope by the Stella Orange-Tip with a ‘no-man's land' around 5000' where both may be seen but neither seems to breed. In the Klamath-Trinity-Siskiyou Mountains in N.W. California, where there is no Stella, Sara goes up to 9000'--suggesting that one entity somehow excludes the other in the Sierra Nevada.”

Shapiro, who has monitored butterfly populations in central California since 1972, says the host plants include “Brassicaceae: Milkmaids (crinkleroot, Toothwort), Dentaria (Cardamine); Yellow Rocket (Barbarea); Hedge Mustard (Sisymbrium officinale var. leiocarpum); infrequently on weedy Mustard (Brassica spp.) and Radish (Raphanus) but only along wood roads. Eggs blue-green when laid but turning bright red. Larvae feed primarily on buds, flowers, and fruit. Adults are eager visitors to Brassicaceous flowers, also California Buckeye, Yerba Santa, Blue Dicks, Fiddleneck, etc.” 

We can't tell you awards entries won because the fair isn't open yet. On the first day of the fair, Thursday, June 15 (free admission), the hours are 4 to to 10 p.m.

The theme? "Celebrate Solano."

But if you like insects—and you should—you'll not only "Celebrate Solano" but "Celebrate Insects." You'll see a few bees and butterflies (including a morpho) in McCormack Hall, home of junior exhibits. McCormack Hall's superintendent is Sharon Payne of Roseville, (formerly of Vallejo), a past president of the Solano County 4-H Leaders' Council and a veteran 4-H leader (14 years). Her daughter, Julianna Payne Brown of Benicia, also a 4-H veteran, serves as the assistant superintendent of McCormack Hall. 

In Fine Arts (senior division), check out the acrylic oil painting of Caitlin Douglas of Vallejo. It's entered under "Open Art, Plants and Animals." A portion of her painting depicts a honey bee foraging on clover. It is titled, appropriately, "Clover Honey." See more on the Solano County Fair website.

Heading the Solano County Fair Board of Directors is Valerie Williams of Vacaville, who retired last year after a 25-year career as the Solano County 4-H Program Representative, with  UC Cooperative Extension. 

Did we mention that this month is National Pollinators Month?