- (Focus Area) Environment
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
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. No bees in the garden early this morning.
If she thinks she's going to munch on oleander aphids (which she probably won't), there are plenty.
Fact is, she doesn't "think" like we do. She will wait, quite patiently, to ambush prey. Even in the pending triple temperatures of the day.
When the heat becomes unbearable, she will slip beneath the leaves, but...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
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.
Doctoral student Iris Quayle of the laboratory of Professor Jason Bond, director of the Bohart (and 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), staffed a station explaining the differences.
Some major...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
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.
"We saw just three species," he said, listing them as:
- Pelochrista eburata, a tortricid moth with no common name
- Platynota stultana, a tortricid known as the Omnivorous Leafroller Moth, and
- Ephestiodes gilvescentella, a...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
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.
Did you know that there are 73 species of dragonflies (Anisoptera) in California?
We've been waiting for an updated field guide book on our state's dragonflies, and now it's here.
Dragonfly experts Kathy Biggs and Sandra von Arb have just announced their newly published book, Dragonflies (Anisoptera) of California,published by Nature/Field Guides. It's a 200-page, spiral-bound book, rich with images, and...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When a newly eclosed Western tiger swallowtail, Papilio rutulus, lands on a butterfly bush, the colors are striking.
The yellow and black butterfly contrasts well on the purple blossoms of Buddleja davidii.
While the majestic butterfly is widely loved, the plant, also called summer lilac, is not. It's considered an ecological threat and a noxious weed by the Invasive Plant Atlas of the United States: "Buddleja davidii readily invades disturbed sites and riparian areas. Although butterflies will use this plant as a nectar source...