It's Friday Fly Day, when folks post images of flies. Flies seem to the entomological equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield's "I-don't-get-no-respect" quote.
In your childhood, somebody probably gave you a jack-in-the-box toy, a music box that you crank up, and then the lid springs opens and out pops a wildly dressed clown, startling you and everyone around you. A praying mantis sighting is something like that, but without the music box.
It's beginning to look a lot like...Halloween. If you haven't noticed, stores are gearing up for Halloween with assorted ghosts, goblins and ghouls for you. We remember Halloween 2023 when a female migratory monarch fluttered into our pollinator garden.
So, here you are, a newly eclosed Western tiger swallowtail, Papilio rutulus, eager to sip some nectar from a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola, in a Vacaville garden. It's a warm, windless day, and you're anxious to score, score, score.
From honey bees to butterflies to nematodes--those will be some of the topics when the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology hosts its fall quarter seminars. The seminars begin Monday afternoon, Sept. 30 and continue every Monday through Dec. 2.
