You never know where a praying mantis will deposit its egg case, the ootheca. In and around Vacaville, we've seen them on olive trees, honeysuckle vines, passionflower vines, and wooden stakes.

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A cabbage white heads for catmint in a garden in Vacaville, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest Is Over

February 4th, 2020

If you were thinking of trying to net a cabbage white butterfly to win Art Shapiro's "Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest"--a butterfly for a pitcher of beer, or its equivalent--you're too late. The contest is over. No winner this year.

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A syrphid, also known as a hover fly or flower fly, nectars on a tower of jewels, Echium wildpretii, in Vacaville, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Andrew Young: Natural History of Syrphids, from Pollinators to Parasitoids

February 3rd, 2020

At first glance, they're often mistaken for bees, but bees they are not. They're flies. You've probably seen them hovering over flowers, which is why syprhids are commonly called "hover flies" or "flower flies." Enter Andrew Young.

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Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, with part of the tardigrade collection. The Bohart collection includes some 25,000 slide-mounted specimens. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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Oh, for a Water Bear Sculpture at the Bohart Museum!

January 31st, 2020

If you can picture a huge water bear (tardigrade) sculpture gracing the entrance to the Bohart Museum of Entomology on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus, the scientists need your help to make it happen.

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A monarch in flight in the summer of 2017 in Vacaville, Calif. This is the non-native tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica.(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

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A Monarch Sighting in January? In Sacramento? Yes!

January 30th, 2020

News flash: Monarch sighting in Sacramento! Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, spotted a monarch in Sacramento on Wednesday, Jan. 29--way, way, way early to see monarchs in this area. But it wasn't in his transect.

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