- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Can a praying mantis catch a monarch?
Yes, it can. And yes, it does.
It was Sept. 14, 2013. As I approached a Vacaville supermarket, I noticed pink lantana blooming furiously near the entrance, and then, a familiar-looking butterfly quietly sipping nectar.
"Ah, there's a monarch," I observed.
I wasn't the only one watching the monarch.
A female praying mantis, Stagmomantis limbata, was watching it, too.
In a nano-second, it was all over.
A meal for the mantis.
One less monarch to migrate.
Yes, it can. And yes, it does.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Prey tell, where are all the praying mantids?
Last fall, a Stagmomantis limbata deposited her egg case, or ootheca, on a clothespin on our outdoor clothesline. On April 9, the clothespin sprang to life. Hundreds of nymphs emerged, scrambled away, and vanished.
Some wandered around on the clothesline. Some ate one another. Some survived to adulthood.
We saw only four in our pollinator garden: a female in the patch of lion's tail, Leonotis leonurus; a female on the Mexican sunflower Tithonia rotundifola; and a male and female in the African blue basil, Ocimum kilimandscharicum × basilicum 'Dark Opal."
They appeared,...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Where are you, Gulf Fritillaries?
The Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) population seems to be diminishing this year around Solano and Yolo counties.
A few here, a few there, but not in the large numbers of last year.
Last summer the Gulf Frits overwhelmed our passionflower vine (Passiflora), their host plant, and skeletonized it.
Which is what we want them to do. We plant Passiflora for them, not for the fruit or the blossoms. On a good year, they eat it all--blossoms, fruit, leaves and stems--and look for more.
The history of the butterfly in...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
They're everywhere.
But they're not welcome.
Agriculturists who commercially grow cabbage and other cucurbits aren't fond of the cabbage white butterlfy, Pieris rapae, because its larvae are pests that ravish their crops.
No welcome mat for them.
This butterfly, however, is welcome--sort of--starting Jan. 1 of every year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo. It's the target of the "Beer for a Butterfly Contest," sponsored by Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology. The first one collected in the three-county area collects a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.
Professor Shapiro, who...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Strange thing, nobody ever says "as green as a green bottle fly."
'Cept maybe an entomologist.
You've heard:
- As green as an emerald
- As green as a lizard
- As green as a gourd
- As green as grass
- As green as bottled glass
- As green as it gets
But as "green as a bottle fly" (or blow fly in the family Calliphoridae)?
No. Most people cringe at the very sound. They associate green bottle flies with their larvae, aka maggots, which eat rotting flesh. These insects lay their eggs in cadaver tissue. At crime scenes, forensic entomologists can determine the time...