Rangelands

The Frit and the fly...or the butterfly and the fly... That would be the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) and the syrphid fly (family Syrphidae), aka flower fly or hover fly. They meet on a beautiful autumn day on an equally beautiful Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifolia).

Where are you most likely to encounter a rheophilic insect? If you know the answer to that, you could have scored at the Linnaean Games competition at the recent meeting of the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America (PBESA). The answer: "In moving streams.

Picture this! A 5x6-foot ruby-tailed wasp! When you visit the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, that's what will greet you at its entrance.

(News Flash: Congratulations to the UC Berkeley-UC Davis team! They won the national championship at the ESA meeting held Nov. 11-14 in Vancouver, B.

UC Sierra Foothill REC is hosting a community workshop & field demonstration event where The Silver Lab at UC Berkeley will discuss results from a long-term (10 year) compost addition trial on foothill rangeland and observed benefits for forage quality, quantity, and soil health characteristics.

Chico State Hosts "Wildcats Vote" Campaign Forum (Action News Now 12/24) Cecile Juliette, Oct. 15 Ryan Cleland, 4-H Community Education Specialist, said voting is the best way to make a point. "You don't have to engage in the conversations at Thanksgiving or the arguments on TV," Cleland said.

It's Halloween and scores of trick-or-treaters are donning monarch butterfly costumes. But they can't do justice to the living monarchs, those iconic, majestic butterflies that are always dressed in Halloween colors: black and orange.

Stick insects, also known as walking sticks, stick bugs and bug sticks because they resemble sticks, may not get any respect, but they do at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis.

UC scientists, students and water agency professionals took a critical look inwards and a radical look outwards when they gathered in Sacramento in October to reimagine California water.

As some readers may know, I put out a quarterly newsletter (The New Foothill Rancher in Placer and Nevada Counties; The New Ranch Update in Sutter and Yuba Counties).