Bug Squad

Bumble bee on bull thistle at Bodega Bay
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HOVERING--A hover fly hovers over a rock purslane (Calandrinia grandiflora). Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Hovering

October 27th, 2008
Hover flies do know how to hover. Like a helicopter with spinning blades, the hover fly lingers seemingly motionless in mid-air over a flower before zeroing down to feed on the nectar. Sometimes theyre called flower flies. Sometimes syprhids.
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SOMETHING BUGGY HERE: These jack o'lanterns cast an eerie glow: a butterfly, honey bee and a dragonfly. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Light My Fire

October 24th, 2008
There they sat, a row of jack o'lanterns ready for a light. Undergraduate students at the University of California, Davis, created them for the "Happy Halloween" open house, held Oct. 23 at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, 1124 Academic Surge, UC Davis.
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THE BAD--This is the light brown apple moth, a male. The CDFA's William Roltsch will discuss "Biocontrol of Light Brown Apple Moth, a Quarantine Pest in California” at the Northern California Entomology Society meeting on Nov. 6 in Concord. (Photo courtesy of David Williams, principal scientist, Perennial Horticulture, Department of Primary Industries, Victoria, Australia.)
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The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

October 23rd, 2008
If you're interested in insects--the good, the bad and the ugly--don't miss the Northern California Entomology Society meeting on Thursday, Nov. 6 in Contra Costa County. You don't have to be a member.
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A yellow ladybug on sage. The ladybug (ladybird beetle) is a beneficial insect. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Seeing Spots

October 22nd, 2008
If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. That inductive reasoning (known as "the duck test") doesn't hold true for yellow bugs with black spots. A yellow ladybug (ladybird beetle) and a cucumber beetle look a little alike--at first glance.
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This is a pitcher plant, Sarracenia leucophylla. It's carnivorous. The tubular leaf (left) is spent. The other two are ready to trap insects. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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Dracula in the Garden

October 21st, 2008
The red-pigmented white pitcher plant we purchased at the UC Davis Arboretum Plant Faire looks like a flamboyant coral reef. Like a hat askew, its ruffled lid hangs over the trumpet-shaped pitcher. The pitcher is actually a long, hollow tubular leaf. But looks are deceiving.
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