- (Focus Area) Environment
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's nicknamed "the sunflower bee" for good reason.
It forages on sunflowers.
We recently spotted a longhorned bee, Svastra obliqua, also called "the sunflower bee," on Gaillardia, aka blanket flower, a member of the sunflower family, Asteracease.
Asteraceae is comprised of more than 32,000 known species of flowering plants. And Svastra? Fourteen different species occur in North America and seven in California, according to the UC Berkeley Urban Bee Lab, which provides this description:
"Overall they are medium to large, with stout bodies, gray hair on their thorax, and irregular striping on their abdomen. Females can be distinguished by their scopae, which are located on their hind legs. They additionally are larger compared to males and have dark faces. Males have yellow markings on the bottom section of their faces and are typically more elongate in body size. Both male and female bees have long antennae. Svastra sp. look very similar to Melissodes without using a microscope. However, Svastra sp. will have longer antennae than both Anthophora and Diadasia so the difference is more noticeable."
Those long antennae...those eyes...those mesmerizing eyes...
You can read more about California's native bees in California Bees and Blooms: a Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists, a book authored by the University of California team of Gordon Frankie, Robbin Thorp, Rollin Coville and Barbara Ertter. All are affiliated with UC Berkeley. Thorp, who received his doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley, was a member of the UC Davis entomology faculty for 30 years, from 1964-1994. He achieved emeritus status in 1994 but continued his research, teaching and public service until a few weeks before his death on June 7, 2019.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Those attending the Bohart Museum of Entomology's recent Moth Night learned all about silkworms, moths, cocoons and textiles at a display staffed by Michael "Mike" Pitcairn, a retired senior environmental scientist/supervisor with the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
Mulberry silk production originated in China at least 5000 years ago. Folklore indicates that the wife of a Chinese emperor watched a cocoon fall from a mulberry tree into her teacup. She reportedly watched the cocoon unravel, revealing a long delicate thread. She collected thousands of the threads and made a robe for the emperor.
Biology Professor Richard Peigler of University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, donated the items to the Bohart Museum in 2020, said UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emerita Lynn Kimsey, former director of the Bohart. "What's cool about it is," she said, "is that the silk pieces were made from silk produced by multiple silk moth species, not just the one we think of commercially."
The mulberry moth is the primary producer of silk. Tussah is the most well known of the wild silks.
Peigler has worked extensively with wild silk moths, studying their phylogeny, taxonomy and biology. His donations comprise the Wild Silks collection at the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida.
"Wild silk is not nearly as luxurious as domestic silk found in today's clothing industry," the McGuire Center website relates. "This is raw, rough, and textured silk which feels almost paper-like to the human touch. This silk is harvested from the cocoons of various silk moths that encounter little to no human interaction. The practice of producing silk – termed sericulture, stretches back 5 millennia, and astonishingly, is a craft performed to this very day."
They included a woman's chaddar (head covering and shawl) and tablecloths.
Eri Silk (Samia ricini). Displayed was a woman's chaddar of 100 percent eri silk (Samia ricini), handwoven in Assam, India, and of naturally colored yarn. The brocade was done in traditional Assamese motifs. Women in rural villages in Northeast India wear these traditional shawls in winter. Peigler bought the chaddar for $47 from a seller in India in 2019.
Tussah Silk (Antheraea pernyi). Displayed was an antique tablecloth of tussah silk, handwoven in China in the 1920s or 1930s. The tablecloth, hand-reeled and in the natural beige color, is hand-embroidered with mulberry silk (Bombx mori). China has exported thousands of tablecloths and handkerchiefs made of tussah silk (called "pongee" or "Shantng silk") to the United States and the United Kingdom. Peigler purchased this tablecloth in April 2019 from an internet seller in Mount Dora, Fla., for $35.
Also of interest was a sample of tussah silk fabric in a pattern called "Honeycomb," mimicking the hexagonal cells in a bee colony. "The yarns were machine spun and the fabric was machine woven," said Peigler, who purchased the fabric from Oriental Silk Import Co. in Los Angeles for $32.95 per yard. There are several species of tussah silk moths (family Saturniidae) in China, India, Japan, Africa and North America.
Mulberry Silk (Bombx mori). Displayed was a tablecloth created in the early 1900s in China. "It was spun, woven and embroidered by hand," Peigler related.
The Bohart Museum, founded in 1946, is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. It also includes a live petting zoo and an insect-themed gift shop. Director of the museum is Professor Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and associate dean, Agricultural Sciences, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The Bohart Museum is open to walk-in visitors on Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 4:30 p.m. through Aug. 27. It will be closed to the public Sept. 1-22.
The next open house is set for 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 28. The theme is "Museum ABC's: Arthropods, Bohart and Collecting." All open houses are free and family friendly. Parking is also free. For more information, contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Meanwhile, here's another look at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's 2024 Moth Night, which drew widespread interest.
No one knows exactly how many moth events took place across the nation during National Moth Week, just as no one can predict how many species of moths and other night-flying insects will come to your porch light at night, or to your blacklighting display (UV light illuminating a hanging white sheet).
"Scientists estimate there are at minimum 150,000 moth species, and some believe that there could be over 500,000! Moths have been found that are small as a pinhead and as large as an adult-human's hand," according to NationalToday.com. "But of course, it's the incredibly complicated wing colors and patterns that make them especially dazzling."
A New Jersey non-profit organization, Friends of the East Brunswick Environmental Commission, launched the national event in 2012. The organization is dedicated to the conservation and promotion of the local environment.
The Bohart Museum's global collection of 8 million insects includes some 825,454 specimens of moths and butterflies, including 618,750 moths, ranging in size from the huge Atlas moths (10-inch wingspan) to the extremely tiny (4 mm wingspan) leafminer moths, says Jeff Smith, curator of the Lepidoptera collection. He and Bohart associate Greg Kareofelas showed dozens of moth specimens and answered questions.
What moths were drawn to the blacklighting display? (See list on Bug Squad blog). Retired UC Davis staff associate John "Moth Man" De Benedictus and his colleagues set up the blacklighting display. UC Davis doctoral student Iris Quayle fielded questions about the differences between moths and butterflies (See Bug Squad blog).
In today's blog, we share images of
- Moth-er Volkmar Heinrich, UC Davis associate professor of biomedical engineering
- Moth-ers UC Davis doctoral candidate Peter Coggan and his father, Pete Coggan of Minnesota (See Bug Squad blog)
- UC Davis student Kaitai Liu who showed stick insects and Madagascar hissing cockroaches from the live petting zoo
- UC Davis graduate student Riley Hoffman and fellow Bohart volunteer Barbara Heinsch, who staffed the family arts-and-crafts table.
Light Pollution. The Coggans answered many questions about light pollution. "Most organisms have come to rely on nighttime darkness for knowing when to reproduce, preparing for the winter, and moving around their environment," commented UC Davis doctoral student Peter Coggan. "The Industrial Revolution Artificial Light At Night (ALAN) has become a major conservation issue, disorienting and confusing countless species, often resulting in death. ALAN often kills or displaces organisms like bats, moths, and fireflies, making our nights less bio- diverse and more mosquito filled."
"Not only does it alter animal behavior but ALAN also has been linked to many human health issues like depression, obesity, and cancer," he said. "Although not widely known, ALAN is one of the easiest environmental crises to solve. Raising awareness and getting communities to reduce their light usage can solve the issue overnight and bring back the animals of darkness and the stars back to them."
The Bohart Museum's Moth Night also featured a display of various silk textile and cocoons, donated to the museum by Professor Richard Peigler of the University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio. Bohart associate Mike Pitcairn, retired senior environmental scientist and supervisor, California Department of Food and Agriculture's Biological Control Program, staffed the table. (See more in upcoming Bug Squad blog.)
The Bohart Museum, founded in 1946, is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. Director of the insect museum is Professor Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and associate dean, Agricultural Sciences, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
The open houses are free and family friendly. The next open house is on Saturday, Sept. 28 from 1 to 4 p.m. The theme: "Museum ABC's: Arthropods, Bohart and Collecting." Access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or email bmuseum@ucdavis.edu for more information.
- Author: Ben A Faber
In Person Ant IPM Workshops
Program for both workshops
Schedule
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Speakers
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Topics & Itinerary
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8:00 AM – 8:15 AM
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Arrival / Set-Up
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8:30 AM – 9:00 AM
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Registration & Coffee/Snacks
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9:00 AM – 9:05 AM
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Dong-Hwan Choe
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Brief introduction
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9:05 AM – 9:50 AM
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Robert Budd
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Pesticides in surface water
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9:50 AM – 10:20 AM
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Michael ?Rust
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Ant control & Insecticide runoff around urban houses
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10:20 AM – 10:50 AM
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Break
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10:50 AM – 11:35 AM
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Chow-Yang Lee
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Insecticide mode of action and their impact on targets and non-targets
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11:35 AM – 12:05 PM
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Michael Rust
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Principles in ant baiting
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12:05 PM – 1:05 PM
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Lunch
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1:05 PM – 1:50 PM
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Dong-Hwan Choe
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Alliance project overview and project findings
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1:50 PM – 2:20 PM
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Luis Agurto
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Baiting for pest ant management
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2:20 PM – 2:50 PM
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Blair Smith
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Industry perspectives on low-impact ant IPM
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2:50 PM – 3:30 PM
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Tests & Certificates
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- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
He's a male Mantis religiosa, as slim as a string bean, and scanning his environment.
We're accustomed to seeing see the native Stagmomantis limbata in our garden, and not M. religiosa, the European mantis, which is found throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America.
"Males are often found to be more active and agile, whereas females are physically more powerful," according to Wikipedia. "Adult females are generally too large and heavy for their wings to enable a take-off...The great variation in the coloration of M. religiosa from different shades of yellow, brown, green, and sometimes black has been the cause of numerous hypotheses and studies for over 100 years.However, no generally accepted answer about reason, benefit, or mechanism of the coloration or the change of coloration has been found."
The male is apparently quite good at avoiding sexual cannibalism during mating. Wikipedia says: "Instead of just observing them, sexually mature males approach sexually mature females when they see them, but due to the physical superiority of the females, males of M. religiosa face certain challenges in doing so. When a female spots a male, she is very likely to attack and kill him (see also: Sexual cannibalism). Therefore, males can be observed to be very slow and cautious in their approach; after spotting a female, the male usually freezes and turns his head to look directly at her. Since the foveae in his eyes face directly forwards, he has the most accurate and detailed view of her and can watch every one of her moves. He then proceeds to approach her from behind. Males can be observed to stop as soon as the female turns her head or even moves. Mantids are very good at detecting moving structures, but are almost unable to see immobile objects. Using this ‘stop-and-go' tactic, the male stalks closer to the female. This can often take several hours. Depending on the environment, males sometimes show a light ‘rocking'-behavior which is believed to imitate the leaves of surrounding plants to blend in with the background. Males doing this had no higher probability of being detected and attacked, which supports this hypothesis of concealment."
We asked praying mantis scientist Lohit Garikipati about this European species. He holds a bachelor's degree from UC Davis and a master's degree from Towson University, Md., and is now PhD-bound at the Richard Gilder Graduate School in the American Museum of Natural History in the Jessica Ware lab.
"In my time at Davis I observationally did--they hold a special place for me as they were the first species that ever kept and raised in captivity!" said Garikapti, who shared his mantises and expertise at the Bohart Museum of Entomology open houses. "But they also highlighted to me the potential impact of invasive species on both native mantis species but also prey populations--as low foliage and ground dwelling predators, they have a different niche from S. limbata, and may be contributing to the decline of native Litaneutria (even as they have for the California mantis, Stagmomantis wheelerii). Adult females have also been observed feeding on fence lizards, without much apparent effort as they can take lizards even larger than they are. All of these factors combined with their cryptic ooth (ootheca) deposition and large clutch size have made them one of the most if not the most successful mantis species on the planet - they tolerate both cold and hot climates being found in deserts to temperate forests and now have a Holarctic distribution."
Garikipati related that in the Ware lab, he will be "investigating the evolutionary relationships of praying mantises and what drove their diversity."
We look forward to hearing more from Lohit! As for our buddy, the male M. religiosa, he took flight. (See video on YouTube).