Rangelands

Ever seen that humorous sign in the veterinarian office that warns "Unattended kids will be given a shot of espresso and a free kitten?" Well, the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis has done it one better.

Updated Sept 17, 2020 to add link. Visit: MatchGraze.com As previously mentioned in the September 2018 issue of the Farm Bureau newsletter, the frequency, intensity, and size of wildfires in northern California have increased.

If you've ever reared a butterfly--from an egg to a caterpillar to a chrysalis to an adult--you know what it feels like. Like a miracle, to see life unfolding.

The late Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, and a global authority on bees, worked tirelessly to try to include Franklin's bumble bee (Bombus franklini) as an endangered species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA).

We never thought we'd see one this year. And then it arrived. The first monarch sighting of the year.

They are legends. Two of those attending the four-day international Lepidopterists' Society conference held recently at the University of California, Davis, are as celebrated in Lepidoptera circles as the butterflies they study.

How magical are the dragonflies. They zig-zag through the pollinator garden, a perfect portrait of a predator: multifaceted eyes, strong wings, and mouthparts that include a toothed jaw and flap like labrium.

Oh, what a (Moth) Night! It was a family night in more ways than one. Families who attended the Bohart Museum of Entomology's annual Moth Night last Saturday, Aug. 3, not only saw specimens from scores of insect families inside the UC Davis insect museum, but outside as well.

Just in time for the 2019 California Naturalist Regional Rendezvous, naturalists can re-discover California's Central Coast through a new UC ANR publication: Natural History of the Central Coast Bioregion.

It was a good day for a crab spider. It was NOT a good day for a honey bee. It's early evening and here's this bee foraging on a bluebeard plant, Caryopteris x clandonensis, totally unaware of the ambush predator lying in wait. The predator and the prey: Misumena vatia and Apis mellifera.