Bug Squad

When you head over to a nursery, and see bees and butterflies and other pollinators foraging on the plants, that's a good sign. Buy the plants. Promise: The pollinators will come.

He targets the tsetse fly. Tsetse flies, large biting flies that inhabit much of Africa, feed on the blood of humans and other vertebrates and transmit such parasitic diseases as African trypanosomiasis. In humans, this disease is better known as sleeping sickness.

Watching it like a hawk... A variegated meadowhawk dragonfly, Sympetrum corruptum, that is. We look forward to breezes--even strong gusts--in our little pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif., because often we'll see dragonflies touch down. They'll hunt, perch, and hunt again.

If want to plant a passionflower vine (Passiflora)--the host plant of Gulf Fritillary butterflies (Agraulis vanillae)--in your garden, go for the species that produce lavender or purple flowers, "not the red ones." That's what we've been told for years.

If you've ever wanted to ask a scientist a question, here's your opportunity. Ask away at the Science Caf. This is an informative scientific presentation held the second Wednesday of each month in the G St. Wunderbar, 228 G St., Davis. The scientist delivers a brief talk and then engages the public.