Bam! LBAM is back in the news. The California Department of Food and Agriculture announced Aug. 29 that it has established a 19-square-mile quarantine straddling portions of two counties after the light brown apple moth (LBAM) was found July 23 in Napa County and Aug. 10 in Sonoma County.
Our cat is an entomologist. She has no formal training in the science of insects, but she can catch insects with the best of 'em. Plus, her credentials include a butterfly mark on her leg. Xena the Warrior Princess is a rescue cat.
Robert Bugg saw it first. That's entomologist Robert L. Bugg. Bugg, who received his doctorate in entomology at UC Davis, does research on the biological control of insect pests; cover crops; and restoration ecology. And he saw it first. Look, he said.
We netted the floundering California lady beetle (Coccinella californica) aka "lady bug," from our swimming pool. She didn't look like the familiar lady beetle, reddish orange with black spots. One spot was all she had. And little life left.
Whew, that stinks! If you've ever smelled a mosquito gravid trap, you know it's not heaven-scent. This isn't about the aroma of summer roses or the whiff of freshly baked cinnamon rolls or the fragrance of vanilla-laced skin cream. No. This is something that stinks to high heaven.
As a child, Dennis Price loved to watch the honey bees. I could sit and watch them all day, he said. He still does. Love the honey bees, that is. And he never tires of watching them. If you attended the California State Fair on Sunday, Aug. 17 or Saturday, Aug.
Friday lite. That's what it was. But it was more than that, too. Every year, Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor of entomology at UC Davis, wages a water balloon battle for faculty, researchers, graduate students, staff, family and friends.
Beauty isn't skin deep. It's wing deep. The Anise Swallowtail butterfly dazzles you with its yellow stripes and blue dots. If it were a painting, it would be a Michelangelo. If it were music, it would be Vivaldi's "Spring." If it were a car, it would be a sleek Lamborghini.
Hillary Thomas' biological control research on a leaf-eating beetle that targets saltcedar has scored a bullseye. Thomas, a doctoral candidate in entomology at UC Davis, has received a $15,000 Robert and Peggy van den Bosch Memorial Scholarship to support her research.
If she were boarding an airline, she'd be charged double for baggage. But she didn't and she wasn't. She's a pollen-packed sunflower bee enjoying our sunflower. Not a honey bee but a sunflower bee. A native bee.
