Bug Squad

Wanna piece of me? "Hey, Buckeye butterfly, you over there with chunks of a wing missing, yeah you, what happened?" "Well, it was like this. I was just fluttering around, looking for some good nectar, and a predator grabbed me. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was a praying mantis.

Note: We asked butterfly expert Arthur "Art" Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, to comment on the effect of the California wildfires on butterflies and their habitat.

Will a praying mantis eat a caterpillar? Short answer: Yes. For several days, we've been watching a resident praying mantis, a female Mantis religiosa, hanging out in our patch of Passiflora (passionflower), the host plant of the Gulf Fritillary butterfly, Agraulis vanillae.

"It's important to consider species interactions in efforts to understand ecosystem responses to global change." So says global change ecologist Amanda Koltz, a senior scientist with the Department of Biology, Washington University, St.

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