The circle of life... Monarch caterpillars feast on milkweed, their host plant. Oleander aphids feast on the juices of milkweed plants. Lady beetles, better known as ladybugs (but they're beetles, not bugs) feast on the aphids. The milkweed is the only plant that the monarch caterpillars eat.
Dragonflies are fierce predators but they are predator-shy. "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck," as the saying goes.
It's that time of year again. Teachers ask their students to make an insect collection. The project is considered a "rite of passage." However, often the students--whether they be middle school, high school or college level--don't know where to begin.
It's a sin to kill a mockingbird, wrote Pulitzer Prize-winning author Harper Lee in her classic novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird." "Mockingbirds don't do one thing except make music for us to enjoy," one of her characters, Miss Maudie, wisely observed.
