Nematologist Christopher Pagan of lab of UC Davis distinguished professor Steve Nadler will present his exit seminar on "Soil Nematode Community Analysis: Insights from 28S Metabarcoding" at 4:10 p.m., Monday, Feb. 3 in 122 Briggs Hall and also on Zoom (https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672).

Pagan received his doctorate on Sept. 13, 2024. 

UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus Art Shapiro has done it again.

He won the 2025 Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest, a scientific research project he’s sponsored since 1972 to seek the first cabbage white butterfly of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano. 

The person who collects the first live butterfly, Pieris rapae,  and is judged the winner, receives a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.

Shapiro will be drinking his own beer.

A monarch-counting expedition to Glen Cove Waterfront Park, Vallejo, led to the winning entry in the 5th annual Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble-Bee-of-the-Year contest, sponsored by the Bohart Museum of Entomology. 

Michael Kwong of Sacramento and Kaylen Teves of Vallejo, members of the Western Monarch Count, were counting monarch butterflies on Jan. 11 at the waterfront park when they spotted a yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, sunning on an oak leaf.

Plant pathologist and nematologist Jiue-in Yang, UC Riverside assistant professor of nematology, will speak on "Artificial Intelligence and Biological Control for Plant-Parasitic Nematodes Management" at the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (ENT) seminar, set for 4:10 p.m., Monday, Jan. 27 in Room 122 Briggs Hall.

The Zoom link is https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.

UC Davis undergraduate students seeking information on how to write their first research publication--or to learn more about research writing in general--are invited to register for a free workshop to take place Thursday, Feb. 13 in the UC Davis Student Community Center. 

The Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, will host an open house on Saturday, Jan. 11 from 1 to 4 p.m.

The event, free and open to the public, will be a general open house. “It is simply open hours, but on the weekend, when people don’t need to wrestle with parking apps, because parking is free,” said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator.

The Bohart Museum is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane. 

Postdoctoral scholar Angie Lenard of the University of Nevada, Reno, will speak on "Insects in Human-Modified Environments" at the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar, set for 4:10 p.m., Monday, Jan. 13 in Room 122 Briggs Hall. Her seminar also will be on Zoom. The link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.

The long-awaited update of the landmark UC Davis-authored book, Queen Bee Rearing and Bee Breeding by Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. (1907-2003), “the father of bee genetics,”  and his former doctoral research mentee Robert E.

Hearing a queen bee piping is music to her ears.  So is the shimmering sound of the harp.  

Meet Samantha Murray, the newly selected garden coordinator of the UC Davis Bee Haven, a pollinator and demonstration garden installed in the fall of 2009 by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (ENT). Although undergoing restoration since last summer, The Haven continues to be open to the public from dawn to dusk. 

UC Integrated Pest Management (UC IPM) entomology advisor Dylan Beal, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Program, will be the lead-off speaker of the 2025 UC Davis Entomology and Nematology's winter seminar series.

Mark your calendar!

The 14th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day is set for Saturday, Feb. 8, 2025, announced coordinator and co-founder Tabatha Yang, public education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology. 

The 58 students in a fall quarter UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology class, ENT 010, not only learned “The Natural History of Insects” but they learned how to produce  “infomercials,” spotlighting such insects as honey bees,  stingless bees, fungus-growing ants, jewel wasps and blow flies.

The infomercials also include insect migration, insect sociality, and entomophagy (consumption of insects). They range in duration from two-to-five-minutes.

Suds for a bug?

The annual “Beer for a Butterfly” contest, launched in 1972 by butterfly guru Art Shapiro, now a UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus, gets underway Jan. 1.

The person who finds the first live  cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Yolo and Solano, will receive a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.

What are you doing on New Year's Day?

Weather permitting, you can begin searching for the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area of Yolo and Solano. If you photograph or video it, and you are judged the winner, a prize awaits you--in addition to bragging rights.

Microbial ecologist Danielle Rutkowski has just received a Royal Entomological Society Early Career Entomology Award, “Highly Commended,” for her research piece, “Bee-Associated Fungi Mediate Effects of Fungicides on Bumble Bees,” published in Ecological Entomology in February 2022.