Bug Squad

Doctoral candidate Lindsey Mack of the lab of medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is zeroing in on the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, first detected in California in 2013. Infected Ae.

Every Memorial Day, I especially remember my great-grandfather, Samuel Davidson Laughlin (1843-1910), a Civil War color bearer who contracted malaria during the Siege of Vicksburg (May 18 -July 4, 1863). The soldiers called the mosquitoes "gallinippers.

In the blink of an eye... There it was, nestled inside a baby blue eyes blossom, Nemophila menziesii, which is a spring-blooming plant native to California, Oregon and Baja California. "It?" A katydid nymph, a wingless critter with long black-and-white banded antennae.

Back in April of 2021, we wrote: "They're out there, and you don't have to crane your neck to see them." The topic: crane flies. They're often mistakenly called "mosquito eaters" or "mosquito hawks." They're neither. They're members of the family Tipulidae of the order Diptera (flies).

It was a little late. The first flameskimmer of the year usually arrives in our yard in early April. Not this year. The species, Libellula saturata, was late. The easily recognized red dragonfly, also known as "the firecracker skimmer," touched down in our yard today, May 24.