- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's about this yellow-legged hornet detected in Savannah, Ga., the first live species of Vespa velutina reported in the United States.
UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, and the 2002-24 president of the International Society of Hymenopterists told us late last week: "This isn't the murder hornet. It's a slightly smaller species--Vespa velutina. It's about the same size and I think biology as the already established Vespa crabro, which has been in the southeastern U.S. for more than a century. Anything is possible as far as introductions go, but I think it's unlikely that it could establish since it is also native to regions with wet summers. I suspect it got into Georgia through one of the ports. Hitchhiking in/on cargo containers is too easy. Savannah takes in an estimated 4.5 million cargo containers annually. Its actually astonishing that more things don't make it in."
Kimsey, known for her expertise on wasps and other Hymenoptera, is accustomed to fielding questions from the news media. Praveena Somasundaram of the Washington Post interviewed her for an Aug. 18 piece, Invasive Hornet with "Reputation for Targeting Honey Bees Seen in U.S.
Though it is too early to tell how the yellow-legged hornet was introduced and whether it will be able to establish itself in the ecosystem, its presence in the state could have a “potentially huge” impact on Georgia's beekeepers, said Lynn Kimsey, an entomology professor at the University of California at Davis.
Bee colonies could be at risk if more yellow-legged hornets are found in Georgia. A honeybee colony is “basically a giant waffle of protein” for yellow-legged hornets, Kimsey said.
“There's so much food there,” she said. “So for a colony of these big hornets, honeybees would be fair game, and that's their reputation.
The Smithsonian Magazine, one of the first to call attention to the insect, headlined its news story, "Invasive Yellow-Legged Hornet Spotted in the United States for the First Time," and added a subhead, "The insect, detected in Georgia, can snatch bees from the air while hunting, posing a threat to native pollinators and agriculture."
The Georgia Department of Agriculture posted on its website: "The yellow-legged hornet poses a threat to honeybees and other pollinators in our state. These pollinators play a significant role in Georgia's agriculture industry, the state's main economic driver, and it is imperative that these invasive pests are tracked and eradicated. We are working with USDA APHIS and UGA to trap, track, and eradicate these pests and will continue to assess the situation as new information becomes available and allocate additional resources as need."
The insect, native to Southeast Asia, was accidentally introduced to Europe, Japan and South Korea. It was first detected in France in 2004--probably arriving in pottery boxes. It then became established throughout most of Europe. The hornets build egg-shaped nests.
According to Wikipedia, the hornet "significantly smaller than the European hornet. "Typically, queens are 30 mm (1.2 in) in length, and males about 24 mm (0.95 in). Workers measure about 20 mm (0.80 in) in length.[2] The species has distinctive yellow tarsi (legs). The thorax is a velvety brown or black with a brown abdomen. Each abdominal segment has a narrow posterior yellow border, except for the fourth segment, which is orange. The head is black and the face yellow."
In its native range, the hornet mainly hunts Apis cerana, the Eastern honey bee. Bees there suffocate the hornet by balling it.
Will the Western honey bee, Apis mellifera, be able to cope if the yellow-legged hornets become established? The threat is real.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
An enthusiastic crowd is expected at the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 27 in Room 1124 of Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, University of California, Davis. It's free and family friendly. Parking is also free.
We asked praying mantis expert and entomologist Lohitashwa "Lohit" Garikipati what fascinates him about mantises. He's a UC Davis alumnus (bachelor of science degree in entomology, 2019) who's wrapping up requirements for his master's degree at Towson University, Towson, MD. Next career goal: obtain his doctorate.
During his undergraduate years at UC Davis, Garikipati displayed many of his mantises at the Bohart open houses, and answered scores of questions. He won't be attending the open house Sunday, but he'll be there in spirit!
"What's fascinating about them... hard to pick just one thing!" Garikipati wrote in an email. "If I had to choose it would be their general awareness about the environment they are in. They are always watching, always waiting, and adjust their posture, behavior, and movement based on various environmental stimuli. They engage in some of the most interesting predatory behaviors; pouncing, lunging, spearing (yes, spearing!) and sometimes throwing themselves off of perches to secure potential prey. Few flightless predators can catch prey out of the air on the wing but many specialized species are more than capable of doing so. They are the insect equivalent of cats in many ways, but with some weird adaptations!"
His studies are going well. He's describing a new species from the southwestern United States--"that paper should be out by the end of the year. hopefully!"
A native of Pleasanton, Calif., Garikipati says he's been interested in praying mantises since elementary school. “I started rearing native species in the 5th grade,” he recalled. (Read about his trip to Belize)
Mantises Related to Cockroaches. Scientists tell us that the closest relatives of mantises are cockroaches and termites, and that the mantises probably evolved from cockroach-like ancestors.
Gardeners know them as ambush predators with triangular heads, bulging eyes, and spiked forelegs.
Their diet? Basically any arthropod they can catch. We've seen them devouring monarchs, Western tiger swalowtails, skippers, honey bees, longhorned beee, syrphid flies, green bottle flies, and even a lady beetle (aka ladybug).
Late this afternoon we spotted a Stagmomantis limbata perched on a yellow zinnia in our Vacaville garden. Nearby were two crab spiders feeding on bees, one a honey bee and the other a longhorned bee.
Just you wait, the mantis seemed to say. It's just a matter of time.
Open House. "Bring a live praying mantis to show and share (and to bring back home) and have your name entered into a raffle for a Bohart t-shirt of your choice! The mantis can be a purchased pet or one you found outside," says Tabatha Yang, Bohart Museum's education and outreach coordinator.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology, founded in 1946 and directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens; a live petting zoo, including Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas; and an insect-themed gift shop, stocked with books, posters, collecting equipment, t-shirts, hoodies, jewelry and more. More information is available on the website or emailing bmuseum@ucdavis.edu).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A green bottle fly lands on a tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, in a Vacaville pollinator garden.
Houston, we have landed!
The fly, Lucilia sericata, begins to sip the nectar, unaware that a hungry praying mantis, a Stagmomantis limbata (as confirmed by mantis expert Lohit Garikipati) is watching.
The mantis slowly sneaks within striking distance, and waits for his prey to approach closer. Closer. Closer. Closer.
Whoosh! Gotcha! It wraps its spiked forelegs around it.
Houston, dinner is served! Fly à la carte.
Want to learn more about praying mantises?
The Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis is hosting an open house, themed "Praying Mantises," on Sunday, Aug. 27 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane. It is free and family friendly.
According to Kris Anderson of Las Vegas, an alumnus of Cornell University (master's degree in entomology) and author of Praying Mantises of the United States and Canada: "There are just 28 species of Mantodea found within the United States and Canada, the 7 largest of which are invasive species from other parts of the globe."
Some myths about praying mantises, as related by Anderson in his book, available on Amazon:
Myth: "Mantises sway back and forth while crawling to imitate vegetation blowing in the wind."
Truth: "The peering movement of mantises, demonstrated by the swaying back and forth of their body while ambulating or preparing to leap/take flight, is a behavioral adaptation to gain depth perception of their surroundings and has nothing to do with mimicry. Mantises blend into their environment by remaining motionless against a substrate that they morphologically resemble—not by moving. Peering movements causes the retinal images of nearby objects to be displaced more quickly than those of more distant objects, thus allowing the mantis to gain depth perception of its environment as it navigates forward."
Myth: "Mantises grab insects and immediately bite the neck/head to quickly kill their prey."
Truth: "The spinose forelegs of praying mantises are used to hold onto and prevent their prey from escaping. Once secured in their grip, the mantis will pull the prey forward and begin to meticulously chew upon whatever body part of the prey item is closest to their mouth—be it a leg, a wing, the thorax, abdomen, or head. No specific body region is exclusively targeted and the prey is always eaten alive, bit by bit, dying a slow death."
Myth: "Female mantises cannibalize the males while mating."
Truth: "With over 2,400 species of Mantodea worldwide, only a small fraction of species regularly engage in sexual cannibalism. Most do not. Of those that engage in this practice, the occurrence is not inevitable, as males typically escape and may mate with other partners."
The Bohart Museum, founded in 1946 and directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a live insect petting zoo (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas), and an insect-themed gift shop, stocked with t-shirts, hoodies, books, posters, jewelry and more.
The Bohart Museum is planning two other open houses this fall:
Saturday, Sept. 23: Household Vampires
Saturday, Nov. 4: Monarchs
All open houses are free and family friendly. At each event, the focus is on a special theme, but there's also a family arts-and-crafts activity, announced Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Long dangly legs, elongated body, and long, four-segmented antennae topped with a small club.
But there they were, stilt bugs, foraging on evening primrose at dawn in our "living laboratory"--a pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif.
The "stilt walkers" belong to the family Berytidae, order Hemiptera (true bugs).
UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis, confirmed that they are indeed stilt bugs.
Most stilt bugs are phytophagous, meaning they feed only on plants, but some are predaceous and feed on small insects, such as mites and aphids.
Stilt bugs are so-named because of their extremely long legs. Long legs? Check out this dorsal drawing of a stilt bug by Kathleen Schmidt of USDA's Agricultural Research Service.
Spined stilt bugs "are an occasional pest of greenhouse tomatoes that can cause flower and fruit abortion and unsightly feeding damage in mature fruits," according to Penn State Extension.
Real stilt walkers are known for their exceptional balance, agility and grace.
Their bug mimics, however, look as if they could "exceptionally" trip and fall flat on their clubbed antennae.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
At a recent Bohart Museum of Entomology open house, she read passages from her newly published children's book, Please Don't Bite Me: Insects that Buzz, Bite and Sting, and then encouraged questions.
Each time a youngster raised a hand, she'd say "Yes, my friend!"
She answered each question thoughtfully, expertly, and kindly.
Pakpour, who grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, is no stranger to UC Davis. She received her bachelor of science degree in entomology from UC Davis in 1999; her doctorate in microbiology, virology and parasitology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2008; and served as a postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis for seven years, leaving campus in August 2015. Her work "focused on determining the effects of ingested human blood factors on the mosquito immune response to malaria."
Passionate about teaching science, Pakpour accepted a faculty position in 2015 at California State University, East Bay, teaching for nearly seven years before moving to the biotech sector. She is a senior scientist at Novozymes, Davis (since January 2022).
A resident of Woodland, Pakpour describes herself as "the mother of two witty and wonderful kids," and as someone who "loves bugs of all varieties, whether they are six-legged or microscopic."
Factoid: She once spent a summer feeding tarantulas at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.
"An insect," Pakpour defines in her book, "is an animal that has six legs, two eyes, two antenna, and three body parts. A special group of scientists called entomologists have been studying insects for hundreds of years an they have learned all kinds of amazing things."
Pakour goes on to say that "our bodies offer a delicious and unique menu of food for a vast variety of insects. These insects drink our blood, live in our homes, and even in our hair! They impact every aspect of our lives, from the clothes we wear, the pets we keep, to the homes we live in, and the way we store our food. Like tiny aliens living among us, each insect has its own unique body, home, and lifestyle."
Some excerpts:
Mosquitoes. "If mosquitoes don't have protein, they can't make eggs, which is why only female mosquitoes feed on blood...Mosquitoes lay their eggs in almost anything that holds water. Once she finds a suitable spot, she will land on the surface and lay around 100 eggs. So they don't sink and drown, the eggs stick together and float like a tiny raft."
Lice. Lice, which are only 0.10 inches long, can move 9 inches in about a minute. "That is about the equivalent of a person who is 5 feet tall moving 450 feet in one minute."
Wasps. Wasps are social insects. "I don't mean social as in they love to throw parties and hang out with their friends. When scientists say an insect is social, it means they live in a group made up of their relatives." She clarifies that only a few specific species are considered pests to humans and "even then it's only when they happen to build their nests near us."
Cockroaches. "Cockroaches give their eggs a little bit of extra protection, wrapping them up like a lovely box of chocolates in a package called an ootheca."
Fleas."Given a choice at the blood buffet, a flea will always choose a cat or a dog over a human."
Bedbugs. "Bedbugs have big appetites and they like to take their time sucking up your blood...The Romans believed eating crushed up bedbugs could cure poisonous snake bites."
Pakpour points out that these insects are annoying but emphasizes that the majority of the 10 quintillion insects in the world "have important and unique roles to play in nature that have nothing to do with humans....Without insects, our entire ecosystem would collapse."
Please Don't Bite Me could easily be called Please Read Me. It's a fascinating book, especially for young entomologists-to-be or children and teens curious about what's living in their world--or what's pestering them. It's an easy read with interesting scientific information spread throughout the book. The illustrations are BBC: big, bold and colorful.
Great book, Nazzy Pakpour!
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