This woman was stung on her little finger by a yellow jacket on Sunday, 14 August 2016.

The first photo shows her finger on 23 August 2016. She told me that this was reduced from what it had been. On week later, 30 August, the swelling had burst, but it still looked very bad. On September 13, it was much better…

Click to enlarge.

 

This common beetle is possibly Serica perigonia. Sericas are often referred to as small June beetles. Sericas feed on plant roots. In my yard, they really show an affinity for Mexican primrose. These beetles can be attracted to lights, and are reported to eat the tips of roots of a number of plant species.

Ryles Richards brought this yellow jacket nest in, that he dug up from a job in Jamestown. 11 August 2016.

On 3 August 2016 we received a report of fire ants that were stinging the occupants of a house, and their dogs, in the Stent area, near Jamestown. Then, on 8 September 2016, we identified southern fire ants at a school in the Jamestown area, about two miles away; they’d stung a student on a lawn area.

It appears that southern fire ants  (we had California State experts confirm the id)  are now widespread in the Jamestown area of Tuolumne county. This is a new development, as we have not seen fire ants here. They are common in Oakdale, but essentially unseen up here. Maybe the drought, and warmer winters, have allowed these ants to extend their range farther up into the foothills.

Photos below:

Click to enlarge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The photos at the top are of male Stigmatomma (aka Amblyopone) ants were collected by Ozell Gilmore in Columbia California, 4 August 2016. The second set is from the Tuolumne City area.

Philip Ward‘s A synoptic review of the ants of California” says there are two species within California. To quote from that source: “Ants in the genus Amblyopone (=Stigmatomma) have cryptic foraging habits and are specialist predators on geophilomorph centipedes and other arthropods living in soil or rotten wood. Two species are known from California: A. oregonensis (Wheeler) is found in shaded, medium-elevation coniferous forests in northern California, while A. pallipes (Haldeman) is widespread in chaparral and low elevation woodland.”

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These were collected in Tuolumne City area:

 

 

 

We collected maggots coming out of a crack in the concrete (exterior) at a meat processing plant. We raised some to adult. They were blowflies; more specifically, mostly green bottle flies. July 2016.