Have you ever seen a snakefly? Not a snake. Not a fly. A snakefly! They're predators but rarely seen. They eat insects such as aphids and mites. They have a long neck, or technically, an elongated prothorax, their most distinguishing characteristic.
A little haggard, a little worn, a little ragged, a little torn. But there she was on Monday, Aug. 1, the first monarch of the season to lay eggs in our little pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif.
What's the buzz behind the bee? The Western Apicultural Society, headed by president Eric Mussen of UC Davis, Extension apiculturist emeritus, wanted a unique bee T-shirt design for its 40th anniversary conference, set Sept. 5-8 at UC Davis.
If happiness is seeing a butterfly, then a visit to McCormack Hall during the annual Solano County Fair, Vallejo, Aug. 2-6, will make you absolutely ecstatic.
A sign at the California State Fair's Insect Pavilion, aka "Bug Barn," screams "Bugs, Stay Back!" A middle-aged woman takes the sign literally. "What would you do if you saw THAT bug in our backyard?" she asks her daughter, about six years old. "Yecch!" responds the daughter.
