Finding freshly dug mounds of soil in the garden, lawn, or landscape might be a sign of gophers or moles. Their mounds look similar and are frequently confused for each other.

Figure 1 shows a mole mound, which usually is volano-shaped with a circular margin. Figure 2 illustrates a gopher mound and the characteristic crescent shape and plugged opening. Actual mounds may look slightly different from these pictures, but the descriptions are typical of the two vertebrates.

The burrowing activity of both moles and gophers can damage plant roots by dislodging and drying them out. Mounds themselves can be an aesthetic problem in turf and landscapes, but they can also be tripping hazards. Both species eat plant material, and in...

Pests have popularity contests too. We recently looked at how many visits our popular Pest Notes publication series received in 2017.

If you aren't familiar, the UC IPM Pest Notes series are science-based publications written and reviewed by experts on specific pest or management topics for California. UC IPM has 169 Pest Notes with some being more popular than others.

Here are the 20 most visited titles in 2017:

1- Carpet Beetles
For the third year in a row, carpet beetles was the most viewed of the UC IPM Pest Notes series on our website! This commonly occurring indoor pest can be accidentally brought into your home on cut flowers or through open doors...

Spotting a small moth fluttering around your closet then discovering damaged fabric or other items can be shocking. Upon further inspection, you may even see the silken webs spun by the larvae, or the droppings they leave behind.

Clothes moth larvae attack wool clothing, carpets, rugs, upholstered furniture, furs, and much more. They will even feed on synthetic or cotton blends of fabric if they also contain wool.

Sometimes people mistake clothes moths for pantry pests (food and grain-infesting moths). Clothes moths are small, about ¼ long, and only flutter about the area they have infested, typically around around bedrooms and where...

Conenose or ‘kissing bugs' (Triatoma spp.) are in the Reduviidae family, a group of insects known for a sturdy body and large proboscis. Most reduviids are beneficial as insect predators, and include various species of assassin bugs. Conenose bugs are easily confused with other assassin bugs as well as bugs with similar body shapes from other insect families.

Kissing bugs are not new insects to California or the United States, but there has been a good deal of press about them in recent years because conenose bugs can vector a protozoan, Trypanosoma cruzi, that causes Chagas disease in humans. While conenose bugs do...