Bug Squad

The Vacaville Museum Guild's annual children's party--for Vacaville children ages 3 to 9--promises to be a honey of a party. Themed "Fun on the Farm," it's an entertaining and educational event set for 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 8 in the museum courtyard, 213 Buck Ave.,Vacaville.

So here's this female praying mantis, Stagmomantis limbata, camouflaged on a narrow-leaf milkweed, Asclepias fasciculari, in a Vacaville garden. If she thinks she's going to ambush a monarch, she has another think coming. No monarchs in the garden. If she thinks she's going to ambush a bee, no way.

What are the differences between moths and butterflies? That was a key question asked at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's annual Moth Night, held both indoors and outdoors on the UC Davis campus on Saturday, July 20.

They saw the light. The insects, that is. Bohart Museum of Entomology research associate John "Moth Man" De Benedictus and colleagues set up a blacklighting display during the Bohart's annual Moth Night, held July 20, hoping to find a diversity of moths and other night-flying insects.

If you're like me, your heart skips a couple of beats when you encounter a dragonfly, especially the fire-engine red flameskimmer, Libellula saturata.