Bug Squad

It's Friday Fly Day! Time to post an image of a fly. Or two flies. On a cockroach. The scenario: a large cockroach drowned in a small water trough located near downtown Vacaville, Calif., and when the water drained, the roach slid out. It proved to be a feast for green bottle flies.

Have you ever seen the defensive antics of a female longhorned bee, sometimes called a sunflower bee, as she's trying to forage on flowers while a suitor is trying to get her attention?

Get off my turf! The native bees known as Melissodes, the longhorned bees, start stirring in the early morning. First, they settle on a leaf or flower to warm up their flight muscles. Once ready to fly, they don't let up until late afternoon.

International dragonfly authority and researcher Rosser Garrison, who retired as a senior insect biosystematist with the California Department of Food and Agriculture in 2017 and has authored such well-cited books as Dragonfly Genera of the New World: an llustrated and Annotated Key to the Anisopter...

Have you seen any dead butterflies lately?