Bug Squad

 Beware of yellowjacket nests in our state parks--and elsewhere, as well!Self-described "Wasp Woman" UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emerita Lynn Kimsey who directed the Bohart Museum of Entomology for 34 years until her retirement last year, continues to field many a question about insects, including…

 "From the first minute I joined her lab, I noticed how she always provides a healthy environment to foster the discussion of scientific ideas, respecting and valuing everyone’s point of view. I was amazed to see that this does not stop with her lab, but it extends far beyond. Joanna has devoted her…

 What a tiny moth!Jeff Smith, volunteer curator of the Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, for three decades, has just spread the wings of a micro-moth with a wingspan (both wings open) measured at about 1 centimeter.And it is not only tiny,…

 How can you capture a close-up image of a male longhorned bee, such as Melissodes agilis or Svastra  obliqua expurgata?Before the sun rises, slip out into the patch of flowers where you've seen them before. They will be sleeping or slighty stirring. (The females return to their nests at night,…

 Several years ago, a friend gifted us with some garden art, an owl. Its head does not rotate. Its wings do not move.  It does not scare away birds or squirrels. It does not scare away butterflies, either.Last week a monarch fluttered in our pollinator garden and quickly spotted a milkweed…