Department of Entomology - University of Illinois

National Pollinator Week

The Champaign Urbana Pollinator Awareness Network (CUPAN), in conjunction with the Department of Entomology, is hosting a celebration of National Pollinator Week during June 20-28. The week's activities will include guided nature walks, workshops on bee identification and the BeeSpotter monitoring program, events at the Farmer's Market, and many other opportunities to observe and appreciate pollinators in our community.

Pollinatarium debuts to public

The Department of Entomology's newest outreach effort, the Pollinatarium, has opened its doors. This small museum is located south of the university's Arboretum and is dedicated to educating the public about the natural history of pollinators such as bees, bats, and butterflies. The Pollinatarium will be open beginning May 30th, every Saturday and Sunday from 1-4 PM. Click here to watch a photoessay by the News-Gazette, or visit the Pollinatarium website for more information!

Illinois wins NCB Linnaean Games

Congratulations to the Illinois Linnaean Games team for their first place victory at the 2009 North Central Branch meeting of the ESA! Team members Rob Mitchell, Scott Shreve, Nils Cordes, Fred Larabee, and Stephanie Dold defeated teams from several competing schools to bring home the gold. These students will move on to represent their school and their branch at the national meeting in December. A further congratulations to all students who presented at the meeting, and to Rob Mitchell for taking first place in the student competition.

Weekly Seminar
Monday afternoons at 4:00 PM in B102 Auditorium, CLSL

In Other News

6/23/2009: Congratulations to department head May Berenbaum for taking first place in the National Pollinator Week recipe contest with her original dessert recipe, "Apiscotti."

6/8/2009: Dr. Barry Alto leads a study reporting that a predatory midge preferentially eats the larvae of invasive Asian tiger mosquitoes over native species of mosquito (J. Anim. Ecol).

4/28/2009: The photography of postdoctoral researcher Dr. Alex Wild is featured in a New York Times slide show presentation on ants (NYT).

4/2/2009: The Cameron lab pioneers a new technique to non-destructively sample genetic data from museum specimens, and demonstrates that populations of bumble bees have fragmented and lost genetic diversity as numbers have declined (Mol. Ecol.).

2/12/2009: Professor Jim Whitfield discusses how parasitic wasps use a virus to subdue their hosts' immune system. (Nature News).

2/10/2009: Research of the Robinson lab is humorously featured on a segment of the Colbert Report. (Comedy Central).

2/3/2009: Dr. Sam Beshers co-authors a study on how leaf-cutter ants regulate the flow of traffic in foraging trails (J. Exp. Biol).

12/23/2008: The Robinson lab contributes to a study describing the effects of cocaine on honey bees (J. Exp. Biol).

11/19/2008: Congratulations to all who presented at the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America! Honors went to grad students Ann Ray and Emilie Bess for their presentations in the Student Competition. A further congratulations goes to Dr. Kevin Steffey, who was named as a Fellow of the ESA.

11/18/2008: Department head May Berenbaum and professor Gene Robinson lend their scientific expertise to Hollywood filmmakers as part of the National Academy of Sciences' new Science & Entertainment Exchange.

See more in the news archives.