If you've ever reared a butterfly--from an egg to a caterpillar to a chrysalis to an adult--you know what it feels like. Like a miracle, to see life unfolding.
The late Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, and a global authority on bees, worked tirelessly to try to include Franklin's bumble bee (Bombus franklini) as an endangered species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA).
A pollinator garden is a study in diversity--and of inclusion and exclusion. The residents, the immigrants, the fly-bys, the crawlers, the wigglers, the jumpers. The big, bad and bugly. The prey and the predators. The vegetarians and carnivores.
They are legends. Two of those attending the four-day international Lepidopterists' Society conference held recently at the University of California, Davis, are as celebrated in Lepidoptera circles as the butterflies they study.
