Bug Squad
Jackie-in-the-Box
In your childhood, somebody probably gave you a jack-in-the-box toy, a music box that you crank up, and then the lid springs opens and out pops a wildly dressed clown, startling you and everyone around you. A praying mantis sighting is something...
A female praying mantis, Mantis religiosa, pops up between the petals of a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola. Surprise! (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Halloween Surprise: A Migratory Monarch
It's beginning to look a lot like...Halloween. If you haven't noticed, stores are gearing up for Halloween with assorted ghosts, goblins and ghouls for you. We remember Halloween 2023 when a female migratory monarch fluttered into our pollinator...
A migrating monarch butterfly stops on Halloween, Oct. 31 to sip nectar from a milkweed in a Vacaville garden. She was on her way to an overwintering site in coastal California. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The female monarch spreads her wings. She stopped in Vacaville on Halloween 2023 for some flight fuel while on her way to an overwintering site in coastal California. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Battle Between a Butterfly and a Bee
So, here you are, a newly eclosed Western tiger swallowtail, Papilio rutulus, eager to sip some nectar from a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola, in a Vacaville garden. It's a warm, windless day, and you're anxious to score, score,...
A Western tiger swallowtail, aware that a territorial bee is about to attack, raises its tails to ward off the intruder. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The Western tiger swallowtail begins to take flight. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The Western tiger swallowtail leaps off as the bee draws closer. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The Western tiger swallowtail escapes a hit by the longhorned bee. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
UC Davis ENT Seminars: Look Who's Speaking
From honey bees to butterflies to nematodes--those will be some of the topics when the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology hosts its fall quarter seminars. The seminars begin Monday afternoon, Sept. 30 and continue every Monday through...
Honey bees will be among the topics at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology fall quarter seminars. This bee is heading toward gaura in early morning. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
On Sept. 6, 2016, It Happened
On Sept. 6, 2016, it happened. A monarch fluttered into our pollinator garden in Vacaville and touched down on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola. It wasn't just "any ol' monarch"--if there's ever such a thing as "any ol'...
This monarch, tagged and released in Ashland, Ore., on Aug. 28, 2016, touched down in a Vacaville garden on Sept. 6, 2016. It flew 285 miles in 7 days or about 40.7 miles per day, according to WSU entomologist David James. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)