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Posts Tagged: U. S. Forest Service
Bee Flies: Pollinators with a Bad Reputation
The late Argentine-born biologist Beatriz Moisset (1934-2022) of Willow Grove, Pa., called the insect "A Pollinator with a Bad Reputation." Moisset, who received her doctorate from the University of Cordoba, Argentina, and authored the...
A bee fly, family Bombyliidae, heads for a yellow zinnia in a Vacaville pollinator garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The bee fly hovers over a yellow zinina. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The bee fly sips nectar from the zinnia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The bee fly takes flight. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
It's Friday Fly Day!
It's Friday Fly Day! And what better day than a Friday to post an image of a syrphid fly nectaring on a tower of jewels, Echium wildpretii? We all need "pretty" in our lives. Syrphid flies, also known as "flower flies" and...
A syrphid fly foraging on a tower of jewels, Echium wildpretii, in a Vacaville garden. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Vince D'Amico: Zeroing in on 'The Forests of the BosWash Megalopolis'
What do you know about BosWash? It's a name coined by futurist Herman Kahn in a 1967 essay describing a theoretical United States megalopolis extending from the metropolitan area of Boston to that...
The FRAME (FoRests Among Managed Ecosystems) program will be featured at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar on Feb. 9. This is a screen shot from the FRAME website.
A Mid-Life Chrysalis
A mid-life chrysalis? Well, maybe not mid-life, but definitely out of season. A female monarch butterfly eclosed today in our little indoor butterfly habitat. Two weeks ago, we “rescued” the caterpillar from a narrow-leafed milkweed plant...
Moment of freedom--a female monarch is released. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
This was the scene inside the butterfly habitat before her release. Note the chrysalis next to her. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
In the late afternoon, this monarch found a place to roost for the night--on an African blue basil. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
From an Egg to a Caterpillar to a Chrysalis to a Monarch
Have you ever seen a monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) lay an egg on her host plant, the milkweed? Have you ever seen a close-up of the egg? The larva or caterpillar? The chrysalis? The eclosure (when the adult emerges from the...
A monarch laying an egg on her host plant, milkweed. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Close-up of a cream-colored monarch egg. Note the oleander or milkweed aphid next to it. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A very tiny caterpillar but it's big enough to start eating holes in the leaves. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A fifth-instar monarch caterpillar. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
The jade green chrysalid. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Voila! A monarch butterfly has just eclosed. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A monarch sipping nectar from a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
