Backyard Orchard News
They Hop and They Suck!
You've seen them. You've seen them hop. They're aptly named. Leafhoppers are tiny insects (family...
Two leafhoppers sharing a black sage leaf in Vacaville, Calif. They are Typhlocybinae leafhoppers, Eupteryx decemnotata, according to Robert Lord Zimlich of BugGuide.Net. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
"Leafhoppers generally are varying shades of green, yellow, or brown, and often mottled," according to the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program. This one is a Eupteryx decemnotata on black sage (Salvia mellifera) in Vacaville, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Monarch Kind of Christmas
Merry Christmas has always been merry, but it's better with butterflies! Isn't everything better...
Last year at this time, we saw four monarchs eclose in our small-scale rearing project. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A newly eclosed butterfly is a special holiday greeting. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A newly eclosed monarch spreads its wings. It's symbol of hope, love, joy, change, transformation, strength and endurance. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
'The 13 Bugs of Christmas'--Revisited
Back in 2010, two innovators with the UC Davis Department of Entomology (now the UC Davis...
Five gold rings? How about five golden bees? "On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: 5 golden bees, 4 calling cicadas, 3 French flies, 2 tortoise beetles and a psyllid in a pear tree. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
A Butterfly for a Beer! Or Suds for a Bug!
A butterfly for a beer? Suds for a bug? The annual “Butterfly for a Beer” contest,...
A cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, nectaring on catmint in Vacaville, Calif. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Davis Teen: How Those Pesky Mosquitoes Led to a Scientific Publication
Listen to ABC Channel 10 News, broadcast Dec. 22Seventeen-year-old Helena Leal doesn't like...
Researcher and lead author Helena Leal, 17, a scholar at Davis High School, injects a sample of odorants trapped in a solid phase micro-extraction syringe intothe gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) in the Walter Leal lab at UC Davis. In back are chemical ecologist Walter Leal (right) and UC Davis student researcher Kaiming Tan. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Working on the mosquito cage assay are (from left) researchers Kaiming Tan, a UC Davis student in the Walter Leal lab; lead author Helena Leal of Davis High School, and UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Looking over mosquito specimens are (from left) UC Davis chemical ecologist Walter Leal and two members of the research team: daughter Helena Leal, lead author; and UC Davis student Kaiming Tan. Not pictured is UC Davis student researcher Justin K. Hwang. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Davis High School scholar Helena Leal addresses the crowd at the Mexican-American Yolo County Concilio Scholarship Dinner. At left is keynote speaker Carlos Saucedo of ABC Channel 10.(Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)