Bug Squad

05/30/2026

Honey bees can't get enough of the Tower of Jewels, Echium wildpretii.

Wildpretii? Sometimes you feel like addingan extra "t" and remove an "i." It's pronounced "wild-PRET-ee-eye."

A towering, flowering biennnial plant in the family Boraginaceaes, it's named for the 19th century Swiss botanist Hermann Josef Wildpret (1834–1908). Origin: the Canary Islands, Spain. It's predominant around Mount Teide in Tenerife.

https://ucanr.edu/blog/bug-squad/article/tower-red-pollen-blue

05/29/2026

Spiders know where the bees are.

Crab spiders hide in the petals and ambush foraging bees. Orbweavers build sticky, silken webs. Jumping spiders actively stalk or pounce on bees.

The predators and the prey...

I spotted a bold jumping spider in our lavender patch this week and watched it nail a honey bee. It proved too fast for my camera settings, and before I could focus for another shot, it quickly dropped on the ground for a bee lunch.

Both bees and spiders are vital to our ecosystem. Honey bees pollinate our fruits and flowers. Spiders control pest insects, including aphids and flies.
https://ucanr.edu/blog/bug-squad/article/spiders-know-where-bees-are

05/29/2026

05/28/2026

Ever seen a leafcutter bee or carpenter bee heading toward their human-crafted nests, also called bee condos, bee hotels, bee beds, bee houses or bee abodes?

When you visit the UC Davis Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis, you may see them.

The Haven, a half-acre pollinator garden installed by the UC Davis Department of Entomology in the fall of 2009, now includes two bee condos--an older and smaller one with drilled wood blocks; and a newly installed one (with dozens of different-sized holes), a gift from Ambassador Girl Scout Sophie Webb of Davis.

See more at
https://ucanr.edu/blog/bug-squad/article/beds-bees-uc-davis-bee-haven

05/27/2026

Picture this...
You're journaling as a participant in a class at the UC Davis Bee Haven. The garden is not only tranquil but therapeutic. You're writing and sketching about the bees buzzing, the butterflies fluttering, the flowers blooming, and the birds chirping.
That's what took place when Samantha "Sam" Murray, education and garden coordinator of the UC Davis Bee Haven, hosted the garden's first nature-journaling session.
The Haven, a half-acre pollinator demonstration garden installed by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology in the fall of 2009, is located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, west of the central campus. It's open from dawn to dusk. Admission is free.
Lorie Topinka of Davis, a naturalist, watercolorist and science educator and former assistant director of education at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, led the session.
"The journaling session went really wonderfully!" Murray said. "It was a beautiful time to pause, reflect in the garden, and peacefully appreciate its beauty."
"The participants truly enjoyed it and several expressed interest in coming back if we offer the class again in the future," Murray said. "I also received a few emails from people who were interested in attending but couldn’t make the timing work, so I’m feeling very optimistic about hosting this class again sometime."

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05/26/2026

Today, on Memorial Day, May 25, 2026, we pay tribute to America's fallen soldiers and those who served.

Several of my ancestors, including James Laughlin, served in the Revolutionary War. My 6' 3" great-grandfather, Samuel Davidson Laughlin was a color bearer with the Union Army in the Civil War. HIs grandson, George Laughlin Martin, of the U.S. Navy, perished when the Japanese bombed the USS Destroyer Meredith (D-434) on Oct. 15, 1942.

Heroes all. Let us not forget.

See more at

Image Samuel Davidson Laughli

05/23/2026

Sixty Years Later, His Scientific Dream Comes True

More than 60 years ago, a teenage butterfly researcher in Philadelphia conceived of a genomics research project involving the genus Colias, the sulfur butterfly. It never came to fruition because DNA genomics had not yet been invented.

Fast forward to today. The research project that the teen envisioned now appears in a newly published paper, “Temporal Dynamics of Color Polymorphism and Hybridization in Colias Butterflies,” in Evolution, the international journal of organic evolution.

That boy, now 80, is UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emeritus Art Shapiro. “I never thought I’d see this in my lifetime,” he said.

The work was mostly done in the lab of Shapiro’s former doctoral student, Matthew Forister, the Trevor J. McMinn Endowed Research Professor in Biology, University of Nevada, Reno.

The nine-author team includes Shapiro. “As is traditional in such cases, I am listed as the last author, the éminence grise position,” he quipped. “And I did live to see my high-school dream realized. How many researchers can make that claim?”

“The research contributes to our understanding of an evolutionary phenomenon --- introgressive hybridization--that at least superficially seems to defy theoretical expectations,” Shapiro said. “It's gratifying to get far enough below the surface as to be able to see what is really going on, and that's what motivates basic research, after all. We are curious by nature--like cats.”

See more at https://ucanr.edu/blog/bug-squad/article/sixty-years-later-his-scientific-dream-comes-true

05/22/2026

What He Discovered After Large-Scale Argentine Ant Removals
The invasive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile), a significant pest in both agricultural and urban settings, is known for its supercolonies that render substantial harm to flora and fauna, including native arthropods, vertebrates and plants.
Enter Professor David Holway of the UC San Diego Department of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution.
Holway, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist, will speak on "Large-Scale Removal of Introduced Ants as a Test of Community Reassembly" at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar at 12:10 p.m. Wednesday, May 27 in 122 Briggs Hall, UC Davis campus.
His seminar also will be on Zoom. The link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.
"Species introductions are a costly and pervasive form of environmental change that cause impacts including degraded ecosystem services, agricultural disruptions, and species extinctions," Holway says in his abstract. "Surprisingly little information exists, however, regarding the capacity of ecosystems to recover after introduced species removal. The experimental removal of introduced species can also provide unparalleled opportunities to examine community reassembly. Here we use 16-years of data to examine the reassembly of native ant assemblages following the landscape-scale removal of the Argentine ant from Santa Cruz Island, California. This species displaces other ant species, and its removal makes it possible to examine how native ants recover genetic diversity, species diversity, community structure, and ecological function."

https://ucanr.edu/blog/bug-squad/article/what-he-discovered-after-large-scale-argentine-ant-removals

05/20/2026

Today, May 20, is World Bee Day, and time to "raise awareness on the essential role bees and other pollinators play in keeping people and the planet healthy, and on the many challenges they face today," according to the World Bee Day organizers.

Some 1600 native bees call California "home." (Note that the honey bee is not a native)

Can you identify these bees? (Photos by KKG)
https://ucanr.edu/blog/bug-squad/article/celebrating-world-bee-day

05/19/2026

"Good morning, mourning cloak! Fancy meeting you here."

The mourning cloak indeed chose a fancy meeting place. It touched down on our Tower of Jewels (Echium wildpretti) and began to nectar.

"I'm trying to get an image of you," I whispered. "Open your wings." And magically, or sort of magically, it did. Its wingspan measures about four inches.

How did the mourning cloak get its name? It wears a dark "funeral dress or cloak" edged with a yellow petticoat. Blue dots on its wings add to its beauty.

The mourning cloak is one of the longest-lived butterfly species in North America, as records show its lifespan can reach 11 to 12 months.

UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emeritus Art Shapiro says on his website, "Art's Butterfly World," that the mourning cloak, Nymphalis antiopa, is "a very distinctive and charismatic butterfly, best known for its conspicuous activity in late winter, flying and acting territorial before any trees have leafed out or any wildflowers are active."

See more at https://ucanr.edu/blog/bug-squad/article/good-morning-mourning-cloak

05/15/2026

You've seen dragonflies perched in meadows but have you ever witnessed their hunting behavior?

You won't want to miss the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on Saturday, May 16 when UC Davis doctoral candidate and dragonfly expert Christofer Brothers shares his rhyming prose on dragonflies.

He'll be presenting a 15-minute talk at 3:30 on "Midair Basket Weaving: A Doggerel of Dragonflies and Damselflies," representing his preliminary work from his dissertation on dragonfly and damselfly hunting behavior.

"Doggerel," he says, is "a term for funny, silly poetry without a universally set structure."

The Bohart Museum open house, free and family friendly, takes place from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus, and in the hallway. Parking is also free.

The theme is "Buzz Words: Insects in Literature," the inspiration of UC Davis Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA) members Grace Horne, Mia Lippey and Marielle Hansen Friedman.

Talks will be given by Brothers, Krystle Hickman and Felicity Muth.

Krystle Hickman, a noted bee conservationist photographer and author of the book, The ABCs of California Native Bees, will be tabling throughout the event. At 1:30 p.m., she will give a 15-minute talk, followed by a question-and-answer period.

Felicity Muth, who studies the cognitive ecology of wild-foraging and lab-based bumble bees, and authored the children's book, "Am I Even a Bee?", will give a 15-minute talk at 2:30 p.m., followed by a question-and-answer
period.

Tabatha Yang, the Bohart Museum;s education and outreach coordinator, and intern Jo Ridgeway will be staffing displays of fiction books that focus on insects. Macro photographer Larry Snyder of Davis loaned many of the books.

"We will also have the Woodland and Dixon librarians on hand as well," Yang said. "There will be an Eric Carle-inspired craft, and a book exchange. Bring a book to exchange."

Entomologist Jeff Smith, curator of the Lepidoptera collection, and fellow Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas will show specimens from the museum's worldwide butterfly collection and answer questions.

Visitors are also invited to hold the Madagascar hissing cockroaches and stick insects from the live petting zoo

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