- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's New Year's Day and it's common for folks to turn over a new leaf.
What about the old leaves?
Sometimes if you turn over an old leaf this time of year in Solano and Yolo counties, you might find a monarch caterpillar. As of today, we have two monarchs munching away in our pollinator garden in Vacaville. They've survived through freezing temperatures, heavy winds and steady rain.
Back in the late summer and early fall, monarchs fluttered into our gardem to lay their eggs. We provide four species of milkweed. Every fall we cut back the milkweed, but not until all the 'cats are gone. This year the 'cats "weren't gone."
Monarchs surprise us. Some of our December/January sightings:
- A monarch in flight on Dec. 16, 2023 in west Vacaville
- A monarch in flight on Jan. 3, 2023 near Vacaville High School
- A monarch caterpillar munching Jan. 23, 2021 in our garden.
We remember UC Davis distinguished professor Art Shapiro (now emeritus) of the Department of Evolution and Ecology telling us that he recorded a monarch in flight on Jan. 19, 2020 in Sacramento, but even earlier than that--UC Davis professor Louie Yang of the Department of Entomology and Nematology spotted one flying Jan. 8, 2012 in east Davis.
Shapiro, who has monitored the butterfly populations of Central California since 1972, maintains esearch website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/. His 10 sites stretch from the Sacramento River Delta through the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains to the high desert of the Western Great Basin. It's the largest and oldest database in North America, and was recently cited by British conservation biologist Chris Thomas in a worldwide study of insect biomass.
The monarch Shapiro saw on Jan. 29, 2020, however, wasn't in his research project. As he told it in an email to his posse: "We had a visitor today--a British journalist--who wanted to go on a site walk. Rancho Cordova was next up. We went in his rental car. We were on US 50, just passing the Tower Theater in Sacramento heading eastbound, when, at 10.30 a.m. (temperature in mid-upper 50s, light North wind, mostly sunny), a Monarch, sex unknown, flew across the freeway in front of us, 20-22' up, from SW to NE. There is no possibility of error, unless I am having visual hallucinations."
And the monarch caterpillar we saw in our garden on Jan. 23, 2021? "Evidence of inland winter breeding," Shapiro told us. "Nothing surprises me any more..."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
There's no fame, fortune or glory in writing a daily (volunteer) Bug Squad blog.
It's about the insects. It's always been about the insects, from honey bees to bumble bees, to butterflies, to dragonflies, to praying mantises and more.
Why? Just call it a fascination for insects, which evolved some 400 million years ago. "Three-quarters of all known animals are insects, a staggering 1 million species in total with an estimated 4 to 5 million yet to be discovered," according to a November 2015 article in New Scientist. "By contrast, there are fewer than 70,000 vertebrate species. Harvard University entomologist Edward O. Wilson has suggested there may be as many as 10 quintillion insects alive at any one time – that's 1018, or more than a billion for each person on the planet. They have colonised every continent, including Antarctica. They can live in air, land and water. They even live on us – lice evolved as soon as there was hair and feathers to set up home in. They are the kings of the arthropods – animals…"
I began writing the Bug Squad blog (at the invitation of Pam Kan-Rice) on the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) website on Aug. 6, 2008, and have written it every night, Monday through Friday, never missing a single night of posting. Today that amounts to 4020. Along the way it's been named the No. 4 "bug blog in the world" (there aren't that many of us!) And, it has won some international awards. My photos have landed on the covers of several scientific journals and popular magazines, and in a few scientific books and children's books (all donations).
My photography has also resulted in thousands of copyright infringements. One man in Austria falsely claimed one of my images and was selling it on four stock photo platforms, including Getty Images. Others deliberately erase the copyrights and steal the images for their commercial purposes.
It's fun until it isn't.
Where do I take the images? Almost all are from our family's pollinator garden. My gear includes a Nikon Z7 mirrorless camera, a Nikon D800, a Nikon D500, a Canon AE1, coupled with half-a-dozen macro lenses. It's exhilarating to capture an image of a honey bee in flight, a monarch butterfly laying an egg, a dragonfly catching prey, or even to go eye-to-eye with a Western yellowjacket.
I don't poke 'em, prod 'em, or pin 'em. I am a guest in their habitat.
So, in 2023, "These are a few of my favorite things" (thanks, Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers):
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you've lately visited the Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, part of the 100-acre UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, you've seen them.
Honey bees nectaring on the Kniphofia "Christmas Cheer" poker plant.
Its stems, stretching 5 to 6 feet tall, are topped with brilliant spikes of reddish-orange tubular flowers. They are Santa Claus-red, honey yellow, and pumpkin orange, all wrapped in one.
The genus, Kniphofia, honors Johann Hieronymus Kniphof (1704 -1763), a German physician and botanist. Botanist Conrad Moench (1745–1805) bestowed the name.
Everywhere the plant goes, it spreads cheer.
Honey bees, buzzing out of their their hives when the temperature outside hits 55 degrees, spread their own kind of cheer, bringing back life-nourishing nectar to their sisters and queen bee in the dead of winter.
Cheers.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's almost time for the Art Shapiro's annual "Beer-for-a-Butterfly" contest that he's sponsored since 1972. The person who finds the first-of-the-year cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, in the three-county area of Yolo, Sacramento and Solano, wins a beer--or its equivalent.
And bragging rights!
Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus, Department of Evolution and Ecology, is retired, but not from his research and not from sponsoring the annual “Beer-for-a-Butterfly” contest.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2024, Shapiro will be collaborating with the Bohart Museum of Entomology, the "dropping off point," for the entries. Bohart curator and collections manager Brennen Dyer will be accepting the entries.
Shapiro launched the contest a half a century ago as part of his scientific research to determine the first flight of the year in the three-county area. His research involves long-term studies of butterfly life cycles and climate change.
Shapiro says P. rapae is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed. "Since 1972, the first flight of the cabbage white butterfly has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20."
Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/, says the point of the contest "is to get the earliest possible flight date for statistical purposes. The rules require that the animal be captured and brought in alive to be verified. That way no one can falsely claim to have seen one or misidentify something else as a cabbage white."
The contest rules include:
- It must be an adult (no caterpillars or pupae) and be captured outdoors.
- It must be brought in alive to the Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124, Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus, during work hours, from 8 a.m. to noon, and from 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. It must include full data (exact time, date and location of the capture) and the contact information of the collector (address, phone number and/or e-mail.) Brennen Dyer will certify that it is alive and refrigerate it. (If it's collected on a weekend or holiday, it can be kept in the refrigerator for a few days--do not freeze it, Shapiro says.)
- Shapiro is the sole judge.
Feb 8 was "the 11th latest first rapae day since 1972,” he said, detailing the 10 later finds: Feb. 26, 1972 (“which is probably too late, since I hadn't yet learned where to look for them first!”); Feb. 22, 1992 (“I fully believe that one”); Feb. 18, 1978 and 1986; Feb. 17, 1979; Feb. 16, 1975; Feb. 14, 1981; Feb. 13, 1983 and 1985; and Feb. 10, 1980. “Note that most of these are from the '80s,” he said. “There has indeed been a trend to earlier emergence, though this year is an outlier!”
Shapiro, who monitors butterfly populations in the field for more than 200 days of the year, participates in his own contest. He has been defeated only four times and those were by UC Davis graduate students. Adam Porter won in 1983; Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each won in the late 1990s; and Jacob Montgomery in 2016. The first three were his own graduate students.
Shapiro nets many of the winners in mustard patches near railroad tracks in West Sacramento, Yolo County
Recent Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest statistics:
- 2023: Art Shapiro recorded the first butterfly of the year at 11:22 a.m., Feb 8 in West Sacramento County, Yolo County. He did not collect the specimen and no one can forth with a winner.
- 2022: No official contest due to the COVID pandemic, but Shapiro recorded his first-of-the-year P. rapae at 1:25 p.m. on Jan. 19 in West Sacramento, Yolo County
- 2021: No official contest due to the COVID pandemic, but Shapiro collected his first-of-the-year at 1:55 p.m. Jan. 16 on the UC Davis campus, Yolo County
- 2020: Technically, no winner, as Shapiro did not collect the one he spotted in Winters, Yolo County at 11:16 a.m. on Jan. 30 at the Putah Creek Nature Park. "It flew back and forth across Putah Creek and then departed the area, flying out of reach above the trees," he noted. He waited around for 90 minutes to see if it would return. It did not.
- 2019: Shapiro collected the first cabbage white butterfly near the Suisun Yacht Club, Suisun City, Solano County, at 1:12 p.m., Friday, Jan. 25. "It was the earliest recorded in Suisun City in 47 seasons."
- 2018: Art Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2017: Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected the winner on the UC Davis campus
- 2016: Jan. 16: Jacob Montgomery collected the winner in west Davis
- 2015: Jan. 26: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2014: Jan. 14: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2013: Jan. 21: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2012: Jan. 8: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
- 2011: Jan. 31: Shapiro collected the winner in Suisun
- 2010: Jan. 27: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
A fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Entomological Society and the California Academy of Sciences, Shapiro is the author of A Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, illustrated by Tim Manolis and published in 2007 by the University of California Press.
Collaborating with Shapiro on butterfly research projects is Foundation Professor Matthew Forister, the Trevor J. McMinn Endowed Research Professor in Biology, University of Nevada. Forister received his doctorate from UC Davis, studying with Shapiro, his major professor.
Pest of Cole Crops. As a caterpillar, the insect is a pest of cole crops such as cabbage. UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) says the cabbageworm is active throughout the year in California. "Cabbageworm larvae chew large, irregular holes in leaves, bore into heads, and drop greenish brown fecal pellets that may contaminate the marketed product. Seedlings may be damaged, but most losses are due to damage to marketed parts of the plant," according to the UC IPM website.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology is directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey. Entomologist Jeff Smith curates the Lepidoptera collection, a global collection of some 500,000 moths and butterflies.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
And the plant may be a manzanita or ceonothus.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology is sponsoring its fourth annual Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble Bee-of-the-Year Contest, which begins at 12:01, Jan. 1, 2024. The first person to photograph a bumble bee in either Yolo or Solano and email it to the sponsor, the Bohart Museum, will receive a coffee cup designed with the endangered Franklin's bumble bee, the bee that Thorp monitored along the California-Oregon border for decades.
Contest coordinator Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum, said the image must be taken in the wild and emailed to bmuseum@ucdavis.edu, with the time, date and place.
The contest memorializes Professor Thorp (1933-2019), a global authority on bees and a UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, who died June 7, 2019 at age 85. A 30-year member of the UC Davis faculty, he retired in 1994 but continued working until several weeks before his death. Every year he looked forward to seeing the first bumble bee in the area.
The previous winners:
2023: Ria deGrassi of Davis took a video of a Bombus melanopygus foraging on a Ceanothus in her backyard on Jan. 8 She had purchased the plant from the Arboretum plant sales.
2022: Maureen Page, then a doctoral candidate in the lab of pollination ecologist and professor Neal Williams, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and horticulturist Ellen Zagory, retired director of public horticulture for the Arboretum, tied for first by each photographing a bumble bee foraging on manzanita (Arctostaphylos) in the Arboretum. The time: 2:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 1. Page, who now holds a doctorate in entomology, photographed a Bombus melanopygus, while Zagory captured an image of the yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii.
2021: Postdoctoral researcher Charlie Casey Nicholson of the Neal Williams lab and the Elina Lastro Niño lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, won the 2021 contest by photographing a B. melanopygus at 3:10 p.m., Jan. 14 in a manzanita patch in the Arboretum.
Thorp, a tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation, co-authored two books in 2014, during his retirement: Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University,) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday). Every year he looked forward to finding or seeing the first bumble bee in the area. He co-taught The Bee Course from 2002 to 2019. An intensive nine-day workshop affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History and held annually at the Southwestern Research Station, Portal, Ariz., it draws participants from around the world, includkng conservation biologists, pollination ecologists, and other biologists who want to gain greater knowledge of the systematics and biology of bees.
For years, Thorp monitored Franklin's bumble bee, found only in a small range in Southern Oregon and Northern California, and now feared extinct. He last spotted it in 2006.
The bumble bee contest originated in 2012 with the "Bombus posse" of Thorp, Allan Jones, Gary Zamzow, Kim Chacon and Kathy Keatley Garvey, who engaged in a friendly contest to see who could find the first bumble bee of the year in the two-county area. The first bumble bee to emerge in the area is usually the black-tailed bumble bee. B. melanopygus, Thorp used to say. Another early bumble bee is the yellow-faced bumble bee, B. vosnesenskii.
The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens. It also houses a live petting zoo and an insect-themed gift shop. It is open to the public from 8 a.m. to noon, and from 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday, excluding university holidays.