Bug Squad

What we've been waiting for all season... A migratory monarch butterfly fluttered into our Vacaville garden at noon today (Tuesday, Sept. 17) and nectared on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola. Then she treated us to a butterfly ballet.

You may have never seen this tiny bug that's causing big trouble. But agriculturists and scientists have. The spotted-wing drosophila (SWD), Drosophila suzukii, is an agricultural pest that is super tiny. It's approximately 2 to 4 millimeters in length with a wingspan of 5 to 6.5 millimeters.

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.