So here's this praying mantis perched on top of a prickly pear cactus. It's early morning and she's hungry. A cabbage white butterfly, looking like a white-gowned princess in a medieval palace, flutters by and pauses on the prickly pear to seek some sunshine. Oops! Fatal mistake.
When the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis, hosted an open house showcasing specimens collected last summer in Belize, attendees came from far and wide, from senior citizens to pre-schoolers.
So here's this gravid praying mantis perched on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) in a Vacaville pollinator garden. She's in a butterfly state-of-mind, a picture of patience and persistence, a predator like no other. She doesn't have long to wait.
It's rare to see a tagged monarch, either when it's migrating to its overwintering site or when it's clustered high in a tree, sheltered from the elements. When we drove to Santa Cruz on Dec.
He may have been born" in an Ashland, Ore., vineyard. But at least we know he hails from Ashland. That's what we learned about the male monarch that fluttered into our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif. on Monday, Sept.
