Rangelands

Find the praying mantis. That's not too difficult, considering this Stagmomantis limbata is gravid (pregnant) and about ready to deposit her ootheca (egg case or "ooth") on a nearby twig or branch.

Head to the Bodega Bay in Sonoma County and you'll see little kids building sandcastles on the beaches. But head to Bodega Head in the spring and summer, and if you're lucky, you'll see female digger beesbumble bee mimicscreating their own versions of sandcastles.

Remember Godzilla? The 1954 iconic film, Godzilla, featured what Wikipedia calls "an enormous, destructive prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear radiation." I have a Godzilla.

Ever seen a green metallic sweat bee? The colors are exquisite. This is a female Agapostemon on a purple coneflower at UC Davis. They are called "sweat bees" because they are attracted to human perspiration. The genders are easy to distinguish. The males have a striped abdomen.

Is Franklin's bumble bee extinct or is it just elusive? Annual search parties conducted since 2006 have failed to locate the species. Now scientists may learn its status via DNA "fingerprints.

Sorry, we're closed! What's a honey bee to do when one of her favorite flowers, cape mallow (Anisodontea sp. "Strybing Beauty") is not open for bees-ness. Well, leave it to the bee to find a way. We recently witnessed a honey bee encountering a yet-to-open flower in the early morning.

The native plant garden at the Eastern Sierra Visitors Center (ESVC) is now a Certified Pollinator Garden! The Eastern Sierra Land Trust (ESLT)'s Eastside Pollinator Garden Project encourages the creation of pollinator-friendly gardens in Inyo and Mono County.

Would you eat a chocolate-covered cicada? Yes? No? Maybe? Entomophagy is no problem for scientists at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, University of California, Davis. They know where the office snacks are kept. The items includedrum rollchocolate-covered cicadas.

You've probably read the children's book, "Where's Waldo?" Waldo wanders around the world, gets lost in the crowd or scenery, and it's your job to find him. Where'd he go? If you have a praying mantis in your yard, you probably play "Where's Waldo?" a lot. In our yard, it's "Walda.

So, here you are, a honey bee nectaring on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola. All's right with the world, at least in your world. You're sipping nectar to take home to your colony and suddenly...a buzz.