Rangelands

Ready for the new year? The UC Davis Department of Nematology's winter quarter seminars will take place on Wednesdays at 4:10 p.m., beginning Jan. 5 and continuing through March 9, announced seminar coordinator and nematologist Shahid Siddique, assistant professor.

It's beginning to look a lot like...chrysalis. It didn't "look at all like chrysalis" this year in our pollinator garden in Vacaville, Calif. We spotted only one monarch--repeat, only one monarch--and it fluttered around and finally oviposited on our milkweed. The eggs vanished.

"It's wasp time! This is a beewolf! Have you ever heard of beewolves? Well, neither had I until I discovered a bunch of them nectaring on Queen Anne's Lace flowers near my apartment complex! Have you noticed a pattern in the insects I post? A lot of them prey on bees.

The 2022 Entomological Society of America's World of Insects Calendar is filled with amazing images and one of them is by UC Davis alumnus Ian Wright of Riverside, a field biologist and research specialist with the UC Riverside Department of Entomology. His work shows a cuckoo bee (Nomada sp.

On to the Next Phase We've reached a new phase in our effort to learn how to bond a livestock guardian dog with cattle. As we described in previous blog posts, we are learning that we need to bond Sam, our 7-month old LGD puppy, with cattle and vice versa.

Do you know the names of native bees commonly found in California's urban gardens? And how many have you seen in their habitat?

If you follow Gwentomologist on Instagram, you'll see fascinating images, videos and data on scores of insects, including bees, butterflies and beetles, and such curious critters as wasp-mimicking beetles (genus Clytus) and burying beetles or Nicrophorus beetles (genus Nicrophorus).

In September and October 2021, over 100 land, resource, and fire professionals and community members came together to learn about fire in Southern California with UCANR and the Council for Watershed Health.

If it's Friday, it must be "Friday Fly Day!" And a perfect day to post an image of a fly. This is a female tachinid, genus Peleteria, in the family Tachinidae. It is perched on a lavender in Vacaville, Calif. The genus is characterized by two prominent setae in front of the lower part of the eye.

Like many of you, I expect, I've recently debated whether to keep my social media accounts - Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram sometimes seem like a bottomless pit of advertising and argument. But then something like this happens....