- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A free, public open house on “Eight-Legged Encounters,” featuring spiders and other arachnids, promises to be one of the biggest events--if not the leggiest!--of the year on the UC Davis campus and beyond.
The event, set from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 25 in the Bohart Museum of Entomology, Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane, will officially kick off the 2022 American Arachnological
A "powerhouse" of arachnologists will be participating, said Jason Bond, associate dean, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. He will be hosting the conference with Lisa Chamberland, postdoctoral research associate, Department of Entomology and Nematology, and Joel Ledford, assistant professor of teaching, Department of Plant Biology, College of Biological Sciences.
“There will be everything--spider specimens, live arachnids, activities, artwork, etc.," Professor Bond said.
Some 20 exhibits and activities will be set up in the hallway of the Academic Surge Building, said Tabatha Yang, the Bohart Museum's education and outreach coordinator.
Through the NSF grant, awarded in 2013, Hebets seeks to educate the public “about the wonders of biology and the possibility of scientific discovery using a charismatic and engaging group of animals--arachnids. Arachnids (spiders and their relatives) are ubiquitous, thriving in most habitable environments on our planet (including underwater),” Professor Hebets writes on her website at https://hebetslab.unl.edu/
“As a scientist, a mother, and an educator, I often see the disconnect between youth and the world around them; between problem solving skills, observation skills, critical thinking, natural curiosity and the more traditional formal teaching programs experienced by many students,” she writes. “Youth are innately curious and tremendously creative and my aim is to leverage these traits for their own educational advancements in a fun and engaging manner.”
To date, Hebets and her collaborators have developed more than 25 modular activity stations “encompassing arts and crafts, experiments, games, and other hands-on activities." They include classification and taxonomy, spiders and silk, path of predators, and hands-on science.
Also at the open house, plans call for “A Name that Spider" event, coordinated by postdoctoral fellow Lisa Chamberland and PhD students Iris Bright and Emma Jochim of the Bond lab. “We'll have an exhibit at the event with details on the spider,” Bond said. “We'd like to restrict naming suggestions to be youths attending the event, students 18 years and younger."
Another highlight of the American Arachnological
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The spider failed to snag a butterfly, so it went for Plan Bee.
That would be the honey bee, Apis mellifera.
The bee is usually foraging for nectar and pollen and not that aware of her surroundings, especially a cunning and very hungry spider.
So this orbweaver lies in wait for prey to appear on its "dinner plate." A venomous bite and the bee is paralyzed. And dinner is served à la carte.
It's not what Ernest Hemingway would call a pretty sight. But then again, everything eats in the garden.
Repeat: Everything eats in the garden whether we want it to or not.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A partial solar eclipse is about to happen in Vacaville, Calif.
I am watching the insects: the honey bees nectaring on the African blue basil, an orbweaver spider munching on its prey, an assassin bug poised on a tropical milkweed, and a praying mantis lurking beneath a showy milkweed leaf.
Today (Aug. 21) is the long-awaited Great American Eclipse. The totality path will begin at 9 a.m. in Oregon, and stretch across the country to South Carolina.
Hmm, I wonder, how will the bugs in our pollinator garden react to a partial eclipse?
It won't be drastic, I predict. And it wasn't.
The partial eclipse in Vacaville began at 9:02 a.m. and reached its maximum (70 percent coverage of the sun) at 10:16. It ended at 11:38 am., a duration of two hours and 36 minutes.
The bees foraged before, during and after the eclipse, primarily on the African blue basil, which is usually covered with bees. During the height of the eclipse, however, as the skies darkened, a little more than half remained. After the eclipse, when the temperature increased and the wind ceased, the number of bees returned to normal.
"Honey bees tend to act like night is falling if the eclipse takes out quite a bit of the sunlight," says honey bee guru Eric Mussen, Extension apiculturist emeritus and president of the Western Apicultural Society. "Then they 'wake back up' afterwards."
Despite the eclipse, the spider kept eating its prey. (Sure hope it wasn't that blue dragonfly, Libellula luctuosa, "the widow skimmer" I saw yesterday.) The praying mantis kept lurking. The assassin bug raised its antennae. And the bees--although fewer of them--just kept foraging.
Two stink bugs opted to procreate on the bluebeard, Caryopteris x clandonensis. A Gulf Fritillary fluttered by and stopped to sip nectar from the Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). The assassin bug crawled higher on the milkweed, poised for an ambush.
The spider tugged its prey beneath a leaf, abandoning its web. Well, that's that, I thought.
Not so. The sticky web snagged a honey bee while the spider was polishing off its first prey. Okay, spider, you've already had your breakfast. You don't need a second helping. Not today."
I freed the struggling bee and off it buzzed to forage another day.
A partial eclipse, but a full escape...