Bug Squad

Bumble bee on bull thistle at Bodega Bay
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UC ANR is renovating its website. The Bug Squad blogs are archived at https://my.ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/archive.cfm

 

Meanwhile, here are the latest blogs. They can also be found on the Bug Squad blog, Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/TheBugSquad

March 28, 2025: Congrats to Douglas Walsh, PBESA's Woodworth Award Recipient

March 27, 2025:  In Support of Honey Bees

March 26, 2025: Remembering Professor Harry Lange and Helping the Bohart Museum of Entomology

March 25, 2025: Hammock, Morisseau to Give TEDX Talk at School of Medicine Research Celebration

March 24, 2025: A UC Davis Living Lab: Which Plants Are Best for Your Garden?

March 21, 2025: 'Fantastic' and Much Needed Workshop: Fruit Fly ID

March 19, 2025: Thinking Pink on the First Day of Spring

March 18, 2025: Dad's Bees

March 17, 2025: Don't Pinch Me! I'm Green

March 14, 2025: CC Edwards Elected Chair of Youth Professionals, American Mosquito Control Association

March 13, 2025: Bohart Scientists Explain Venomous vs. Poisonous

March 12 2025: A Beautiful Bombus at Bodega
 
March 11 2025: Learn How Two UC Davis Entomologists-Artists Fuse Art with Science
 
March 10, 2025: How to Color a Frog: the Boh-Art Way
 
March 7, 2025: Bohart Museum Open House: Hopping with Poison Dart Frogs
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FEET FIRST--A male carpenter bee glides in for a landing on lavender. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Article

Touchdown!

May 19th, 2009
Insects love the lavender. Think honey bees, syrphids, and carpenter bees. The noisiest are the male carpenter bees. They buzz the lavender looking for females and then touch down for the nectar. They're quick, territorial, aggressive and noisy.
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TACHINID FLY is covered with thick, dark bristles on its abdomen. In its larval stage, this insect parasitizes caterpillars, especially Lepidoptera. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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A Fly -- Oh, My!

May 18th, 2009
It's a curious-looking insect, the tachinid fly. The first thing you notice are the thick, dark bristles covering its abdomen. By human standards, this insect, about the size of a house fly, is not pretty. No way, no how.
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SYRPHID or flower fly aims for a cactus blossom. A high shutter speed slows the wing action. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Patience in the Garden

May 15th, 2009
Patience. That's what it takes to capture images of syrphids, aka flower or hover flies. They are oh, so tiny and they move oh, so quickly. As the morning dawns, you wait, camera poised, near their preferred blossoms.
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FLYING IN--A syrphid or flower fly heads for a newly opened cactus blossom. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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If It Looks Like a Duck....

May 14th, 2009
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck. If it looks like a bee, buzzes like a bee, and visits flowers like a bee, it might not be a bee. It could be a fly, or more specifically, a syrphid or flower fly.
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