- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Step into your garden, walk over to a community park, or hike in the wilderness and see what's out there.
And take along the newly published, newly revised "The Field Guide to California Insects."
It includes more than 600 insect species. Not sure what species of butterfly that is? Want to know if that's a Valley carpenter bee? What's that species of praying mantis you just found? Take a look at the text and photos. Chances are you'll find them in this handy book.
It's a California Natural History Guide and published by the University of California Press. If you're into entomology, you'll probably recognize the names of the four authors:
- Kip Will, entomologist, insect systematist, and former director of the Essig Museum of Entomology at UC Berkeley
- Joyce Gross, noted insect photographer (she works as a computer programmer with the Berkeley Natural History Museums at UC Berkeley)
- Dan Rubinoff, who grew up chasing insects in California and is now a professor of entomology and director of the University of Hawaii Insect Museum
- Jerry Powell, emeritus professor, UC Berkeley, and former director of the Essig Museum of Entomology
We remember reading the first edition, California Insects, published in September 1980 and authored by Professor Powell and (the late) Charles Hogue.
So this revision is 40 years in the making.
It's billed as the only California-specific, statewide book devoted to all groups of insects:
"Engaging accounts focus on distinguishing features, remarkable aspects of biology, and geographical distribution in the state. An accessible and compact introduction to identifying, understanding, and appreciating these often unfamiliar and fascinating creatures, this guide covers insects that readers are likely to encounter in homes and natural areas, cities and suburbs, rural lands and wilderness. It also addresses exotic and invasive species and their impact on native plants and animals. Field Guide to California Insects remains the definitive portable reference and a captivating read for beginners as well as avid naturalists."
The authors point out that worldwide, there are only a million described insects, and that's "more than five times the number of all animals combined." They also note that "estimates of the number remaining to be described and named vary between three million to 30 million or more."
Thirty million! Can you imagine?
The authors define what makes an insect, expanding on growth and reproduction, breathing and circulation, feeding and stinging. They write about the distribution and diversity of the California insect fauna; how insects are classified, and even how to make an insect collection, something most high schoolers will be asked to do.
The book offers you information on dragonflies and damselflies, mantises, stick insects, beetles, fleas, flies, mosquitoes, earwigs, moths and butterflies, and booklice--and more.
It's a fantastic book--well-researched, well-written, well-illustrated, and an opportunity for you to become not a Big Game Hunter, but a Little Game Hunter.
By the end of the book, you may even decide to study entomology. (And there's plenty of opportunities in California, including at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology)
You may also want to become an insect photographer: plant a pollinator garden and they will come. Below are some of the backyard or household images you can capture.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Those passion flowers (Passiflora) are insect magnets.
One minute you'll see a praying mantis on a blossom. The next minute, a Gulf Fritillary, Agraulis vanillae. And the next morning, the blossom is an arthropod magnet--the beginnings of a spider web.
Passiflora is the host plant of the Gulf Fritillary, a spectacular orange butterfly with silver-spangled underwings. The Gulf Frit lays its eggs only on Passiflora.
The Gulf Frits know where the Passiflora is. Their predators know where the butterflies are.
The female mantis, Mantis religiosa (below), didn't snag the butterfly. But it did grab and munch on a few Gulf Frit caterpillars.
Ever critter eats in the garden.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Don't miss the UC Davis Bohart Museum of Entomology virtual open house on alfalfa and rice from 11 a.m. to noon on Thursday, Oct. 22.
Cooperative Extension agricultural specialist Ian Grettenberger, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and his second-year graduate student, Madison "Madi" Hendrick, will discuss the crops, the pests, and the natural enemies or beneficials.
The good: Think the lady beetle, aka ladybug, that can devour some 50 aphids a day.
The bad: Think the larvae of the alfalfa butterfly, a major pest of alfalfa. Other pests of alfalfa include the Western yellowstriped armyworm, beet armyworm, and alfalfa weevil. Among the pests of rice: armyworms, aster leafhoppers, crayfish, rice leafminers, rice seed midges, rice water weevils and tadpole shrimp.
The bugly: Think all the arthropods--pests and natural enemies.
The event, "The Good and the Bad: Insects and Other Arthropods in Agriculture, with a Focus on California Rice and Alfalfa," will be live-streamed on the Bohart Museum of Entomology's Facebook page. (Link to Facebook live here). Grettenberger and Hendrick will present short talks and then field questions. No personal Facebook account is required to join the session, which is free and open to the public.
As Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum, says: "This is all about the arthropods, both the pests and beneficials that they study in the rice and alfalfa fields." Most of the focus is on insects, but tadpole shrimp in rice fields also will be discussed." A virtual family craft activity on rice is also planned.
"I will be discussing some of the insect (or arthropod) problems faced by growers of rice in California and some of the challenges in managing them, Grettenberger said. "In rice, some of the key arthropod pests are tadpole shrimp, which can turn what would have been a lush stand if rice into a poor stand with a lot of floating seedlings. Meanwhile, later in the year, armyworm caterpillars, the larvae of a moth, can chew on rice leaves and destroy plants. I'll discuss some of the ongoing work to better understand and manage these pests."
Grettenberger, Yolo County Farm Advisor Rachael Freeman Long and Madi Hendrick recently wrote a piece in the UC Agricultural and Natural Resources (UC ANR) blog, Alfalfa and Forage News, "A (Virtual )Update on Worms, Weevils an Aphids in Alfalfa."
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis professor of entomology, is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus, but is temporarily closed. The museum houses nearly eight million insect specimens; a live "petting zoo" of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and taranatulas; and a gift shop stocked with insect-themed T-shirts, books, posters, jewelry, candy and insect-collecting equipment. (Gift items can now be shipped during the closure.)
More information on the Bohart Museum's virtual presentation is available on its website or by contacting Yang at tabyang@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Mosquito researcher Maria Onyango, a postdoctoral associate at the New York State Department of Health, Albany, N.Y., will speak on "The Impact of Zika Virus Infection on the Metabolites and Microbiome of Aedes albopictus" from 4:10 to 5 p.m. The Zoom seminar is open to all interested persons; click here for the form to register and obtain the Zoom link.
Aedes albopictus, known as the Asian tiger mosquito, is a close relative of Aedes aegypti, the yellow fever mosquito. Both invasive species are moving through California. (See California report of the two species, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's estimate potential range of the two species in the United States.)
Medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who collaborates with Onyango, will host the seminar.
"Dr. Maria Onyango works on the biology underlying interactions between arboviruses (Zika virus), vector mosquitoes and the associated microbiome," Attardo said.
Aedes aegypti Detected in Yolo County
The Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District recently announced the detection of Aedes aegypti in Yolo County: an adult female found Sept. 15 in a trap near East and Main streets, Winters, and an adult female found in in a trap at Pioneer Park near El Macero, Davis, on Sept. 30.
Aedes aegypti, a day-biting mosquito originating from the forests of Uganda, can transmit the Zika virus, yellow fever, dengue, and chikungunya. However, California has no documented cases of this species transmitting the Zika virus, dengue or chikungunya.
Attardo related that the first detection of Aedes aegypti in California occurred in 2013 and was described in these papers:
- Metzger, M.E.; Hardstone Yoshimizu, M.; Padgett, K.A.; Hu, R.; Kramer, V.L. Detection and Establishment of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae) Mosquitoes in California, 2011-2015. J. Med. Entomol. 2017, 54, 533–543, doi:10.1093/jme/tjw237.
- Gloria-Soria, A.; Brown, J.E.; Kramer, V.; Hardstone Yoshimizu, M.; Powell, J.R. Origin of the dengue fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, in California. PLoS Negl. Trop. Dis. 2014, 8, e3029, doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0003029.
"Since then it has been determined that there have likely been at least two separate introductions of Aedes into California--possibly three but that requires additional study," Attardo says. "The result of this is that there are two genetically distinct populations of Aedes in California. One is based in Southern California in the Greater Los Angeles area as well as areas to the East, like Riverside and Coachella valleys. The second population is distributed throughout the Central Valley. These two populations are genetically distinct and we have developed a genetic assay to differentiate the two populations. We have been working with local abatement agencies (Winters, Sacramento/Yolo and Shasta counties) to test their collected mosquitoes to determine which population they resemble at the genetic level. Each year has shown Aedes aegypti spreading farther into parts of California where it has never been seen before."
- Pless, E.; Gloria-Soria, A.; Evans, B.R.; Kramer, V.; Bolling, B.G.; Tabachnick, W.J.; Powell, J.R. Multiple introductions of the dengue vector, Aedes aegypti, into California. PLoS Negl. Trop. Dis. 2017, 11, e0005718, doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0005718.
- Lee, Y.; Schmidt, H.; Collier, T.C.; Conner, W.R.; Hanemaaijer, M.J.; Slatkin, M.; Marshall, J.M.; Chiu, J.C.; Smartt, C.T.; Lanzaro, G.C.; et al. Genome-wide divergence among invasive populations of Aedes aegypti in California. BMC Genomics 2019, 20, 204, doi:10.1186/s12864-019-5586-4.
"We recently ran our genetic test on mosquitoes that we collected from two different sites in Citrus Heights (divided by Route 80) and actually found that the two groups appear to represent both the Greater Los Angeles and the Central Valley populations, with each group specific to one side or the other of Route 80," Attardo said. "This is unpublished data and we are continuing to process additional samples of collected Aedes to reinforce these findings and understand the dynamics of how these mosquitoes are spreading."
The data suggests "that both populations are moving throughout California and are possibly being facilitated by human activities," Attardo said. "Aedes aegypti which was originally a mosquito that developed in tree holes has evolved to be a very human centric mosquito that has learned to thrive in man-made breeding sites. This may be the key to their success and their ability to move so quickly throughout the state."
Attardo emphasized that "these mosquitoes do not naturally carry these viruses and must acquire them by blood feeding on an infected person, successfully developing an infection and then biting another person. So far there have been no outbreaks of these diseases, but now that Aedes aegypti is here, the potential for an outbreak of dengue, Zika, chikungunya or yellow fever is a possibility. Infected people coming from countries where these viruses are endemic could serve to seed the viruses into Californian populations of Aedes which would obviously be a bad thing. The ongoing environmental changes resulting from climate change will likely allow these mosquitoes and others to move into previously uninhabitable areas and it is going to significantly change how we assess risk and management of mosquito-borne disease risks in the United States and around the world. California is just one example of this issue."
Aedes albopictus in California
Along with seven other scientists, Attardo and Onyango co-authored a research article in the Oct. 2nd edition of Frontiers in Microbiology on "Zika Virus Infection Results in Biochemical Changes Associated With RNA Editing, Inflammatory and Antiviral Responses in Aedes albopictus."
Aedes albopictus, also a day-biting mosquito, can transmit Zika and other infectious diseases. "The Zika virus infected more than 1 million people during an epidemic that began in 2015 in Brazil," according to this report, Invasive Mosquito Species Plunge Deeper Into California. The virus also can spread during sex.
Onyango holds two degrees from the University of Nairobi, Kenya: a bachelor of science degree in biochemistry and zoology and a master's degree in applied parasitology. She received her doctorate in veterinary entomology from Deakin University and Australian Animal Health Laboratory, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and then completed postdoctoral training at the Yale School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases.
Cooperative Extension specialist and assistant professor Ian Grettenberger coordinates the fall seminars. For any technical issues regarding the seminar, contact Grettenberger at imgrettenberger@ucdavis.edu
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Flies seem to be in the news a lot lately.
But have you ever looking closely at a common green bottle fly Lucilia sericata, also known as a blowfly?
Ever admired their brilliant metallic blue-green coloration? Ever thought about them as pollinators (they are sometimes!) but of course, that's not what they're known for.
They're known for their forensic, veterinary and medical importance. They are nature's recyclers when the females deposit their eggs in carrion.
But they're also beautiful.
We captured these photos of a green bottle fly on a tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, in our garden. The red and yellow blossoms contrasted nicely with the stunning fly coloration. Nature's art.
Indeed, flies are an integral part of the annual UC Davis Picnic Day (cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and precautions). What's a picnic without flies?
Forensic entomologist Robert "Bob" Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology always staffs a booth at Briggs Hall where he holds forth as "Dr. Death" with his microscope and specimens as he encourages--and fields--questions from the thousands of picnickers. (See Bugs at Briggs)
Also at Briggs Hall during the UC Davis Picnic Day, "Maggot Art," is extremely popular. The artists, mostly children and teens, dip a maggot into water-based, non-toxic paint and drop it onto a white piece of paper and let it crawl. The finished product often finds its way onto a refrigerator, inside a frame, or as as an unexpected gift to grandparents. Certainly it's a conversation piece.
Meanwhile, mark your calendar for April 17, 2021, the scheduled date of the next UC Davis Picnic Day.
Dr. Bob, the flies, and the maggots will be waiting.
