Rangelands

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.

Yes, there are day-flying moths. And some of them are quite attractive. Take the Stiriini moth, Annaphila astrologa. We saw our first-ever last March in our pollinator garden.

If you own a silk shirt or blouse, a silk tablecloth, or a silk handkerchief, you may not have thought much about its insect origin. You will if you attend the Bohart Museum of Entomology Moth Night on Saturday, Aug. 3 at the University of California, Davis.

It's difficult to believe that it was four years ago--four years ago!--that Emily Bick, entomology student extraordinaire, joined the doctoral program in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. How fast time passes. Bick will present her exit seminar at 3 p.m., Monday, Aug.

As some readers of this blog may know, I'm currently working on a research project examining livestock guardian dog behavior. The back story is this: several years ago, I was invited to demonstrate electro-net and livestock guardian dogs at a workshop on livestock protection tools.