Who doesn't love a praying mantis?

Certainly not a butterfly or a bee.

We humans, though, are fascinated by them. First, there's the problem of finding them. Often they're so camouflaged that we don't see them until they rustle the leaves and snatch a moving prey. An accidental shot of water from a sprinkler or faucet also will prompt them to emerge.

Lately we've been seeing a light brown praying mantis hiding in our fading lavender. At night it sleeps one stem over from the row of male longhorned bees, Melissodes agilis. The female bees return to their nests at night, but the males sleep on stems. (Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis, calls this "The Boys' Night Out.")

Despite its proximity to many food sources, we've never seen this particular praying mantis catch or eat anything.

Maybe this is why: A biologist named Linda who lives in Groningen, the Netherlands, wrote this on her "Keeping Insects" website:

"A praying mantis won't eat a few days before it will shed its skin (molt). This is normal. After molting it will start to eat again. When a praying mantis will not eat even though it does not need to molt, it can help to offer it a different prey species. Do not worry too much, a mantis can live for 2 weeks without any food."

Molting? Sure enough. The next time we spotted the praying mantis, we also saw his discarded skin.

Just call it "The Battle Over the Tithonia."

A female monarch butterfly--gender identified by butterfly expert Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis and Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology--fluttered into our bee garden early this morning and dropped down on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia).

Her landing was perfect. The monarch (Danaus plexippus), a species that Sharpio rightfully says "requires no description"--claimed her flower as several male long-horned sunflower bees, Melissodes agilis, began targeting her.

Talk about a friendly "welcoming party." Not!

Those Melissodes agilis aren't called "agile" Melissodes agilis for nothing.

The monarch zipped over to another Tithonia, only to be trailed by the Melissodes dive bombers.

After foraging on her third flower and failing to evade the tactical squad, the monarch apparently figured it just wasn't worth her efforts.

Off she went, escorted out of the bee garden by the bomb squad.

There are no bugs in the film. None.

Just because an entomologist is cast in a Hollywood movie, that doesn't mean there will be bugs.

Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, and his wife, Lassie, recently headed to the Los Angeles Film Festival for the premier showing of “The Well,” directed by their son, Tom Hammock.

The parents play minor roles in the film, a thriller set in a futuristic dust bowl.

“It was too cold for bugs,” said Professor Hammock of the December 2013 filming in a secluded area of the high desert, near the Mojave.

“No bugs were featured in the film,” Tom confirmed. “But there were bugs around the set. A few velvet ants, for sure.”

The film marks Tom Hammock's debut as a director and Bruce and Lassie Hammock's debut as actors.

The trailer:

At the edge of a barren valley, all that remains of the Wallace Farm for Wayward Youth is a few hollowed-out husks of buildings and the memories of Kendal, a seventeen-year-old girl who can barely recall when the valley was lush. It's been a decade since the last rainfall, and society at large has dried up and blown away. Only Kendal and a few others remain, barely scraping by while dreaming of escape. When a gang leader named Carson lays claim to what little precious water remains underground, Kendal must decide whether to run and hide or bravely fight for what little she has left in this post-apocalyptic thriller.

The film stars Haley Lu Richardson, Booboo Stewart, Max Charles, Nicole Fox, Michael Welch and Jon Gries. Critics are praising the Tom Hammock-directed film as "superb" and looking forward to more of his work.

Wrote James Rocchi in his Indiewire review: “Hammock's direction is superb; every moment of every scene matters, and the film shifts between action and drama superbly. Cinematographer Seamus Tierney also deserves kudos; considering how many scenes in the film incorporate both dark hiding places and the sun-razed landscape around them, the shots are always clean, clear and, in their way, beautiful. The Well"has its pleasures and powers, as well as a distinctive take on what could have been familiar, dead material; Hammock may have begun his career making worlds for other directors, but given a chance to create his own here, he not only succeeds but excels.”

Justin Lowe of the Hollywood Reporter opined in his review: "Hammock's carefully composed widescreen shots of the parched landscape contribute to crafting the film's stripped-down, distinctly menacing visual aesthetic and emphasize the isolation of the inhabitants, forced to compete for water and survival. The sun-blasted Northern California wasteland setting, dotted with abandoned structures and vehicles, greatly enhances the film's disastrous backstory, which is hinted at but never elaborated on."

Although new to acting business, Bruce Hammock is not new to "directing." In addition to his joint appointment with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, he directs the campuswide Superfund Research Program, National Institutes of Health Biotechnology Training Program, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Combined Analytical Laboratory. Bruce also is an athlete who loves rock climbing and white-water rafting and water balloon battles. (He will host the annual Bruce Hammock Water Balloon Battle--10 minutes of aim--on Thursday, July 24 on the Briggs Hall lawn for his students, researchers and colleagues.)

In "The Well," however, Bruce Hammock does not look like a professor, a researcher, an athlete or a water warrior. For the shoot, he grew a beard, donned his father's old ragged World War II clothes and worn-out shoes, and practiced looking (1) forlorn and haggard and (2) like a corpse.

 “It was very interesting,” the professor told us last December. “But my, the producers work hard. We were on the set at 5:30 a.m. We worked until dark, in weather well below freezing, with high winds blowing sand.  The professional actors and actresses put in amazing performances under quite adverse conditions." 

“They're a very professional and fun group. I had never realized the complexity of filming a movie.  I hope they pull off their vision.”  

Tom Hammock is obviously multitalented. He served as the production designer for the critically acclaimed horror films, "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane" and "You're Next," and also worked on such film productions as “Breaking Bad,” “Dexter,” “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." A 1994 graduate of Davis High School, he received his bachelor's degree in landscape architecture from UC Berkeley, and then studied film design at the American Film Institute. He is now very much involved in the hugely popular young adult and horror film genre, but showed more of his talent when he authored the original graphic novel, “An Aurora Grimeon Story—Will O' the Wisp." (See previous Bug Squad blog)

Release date of "The Well?"

Well...the next step is to find a buyer. Directors are fully aware that sometimes this can take months or years.

Meanwhile, Bruce Hammock doesn't intend to quit his day job, but he could--if he wanted to--add "acting" to his resume.

Perhaps it was searching for a thistle.

The Mylitta Crescent butterfly (Physiodes mylitta) did not find the thistle—at least in our bee garden.

What it did find were the leaves of a tower of jewels (Echium wildpretii) where it sunned itself before fluttering off to parts unknown.

This butterfly breeds on thistles, says noted butterfly expert Art Shapiro, professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis. He monitors the populations of Central California butterflies on his website. 

"With the naturalization of weedy European species of Cirsium, Carduus and Silybum, it (the Mylitta Crescent) is now found in all kinds of disturbed (including urban) habitats," he says on this website.

Perhaps the next time we see the invasive bull thistle, Cirsium vulgare, growing in a field or alongside a road, it will be occupied by not only a spotted cucumber beetle (a pest) but a Mylitta Crescent.