These tiny nymphs were collected by Ryles Richards from an account in Groveland, California. The little bugs were quite numerous. I asked Dr. Lynn Kimsey, of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, what they might be.

She said, based on these photos, that they looked like newly hatched, first instars of one of the lygaeoid families – Lygaeidae, Rhopalidae, Miridae or Largidae, but she would not be able to tell until they molt a few more times.

25 March 2020

Chinch bug.

ID by Dr. Lynn Kimesy

March 2020

This smallish carpenter ant was collected by Erik Brians, in Jamestown Ca, 10 March 2020.

Based on these photos, Dr. Philip Ward identified it as a small worker of Camponotus quercicola. 

Here is a copy of the abstract of a paper, co-authored by Dr. Ward.

Systematics, Distribution, and Ecology of an Endemic California
Camponotus quercicola (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)
JURGEN GADAU, SEAN G. BRADY, AND PHILIP S. WARD

Department of Entomology and Center for Population Biology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616

Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 92(4): 514Ð522 (1999)

ABSTRACT The endemic California carpenter ant Camponotus quercicola Smith is a little known
component of oak woodland habitats containing Quercus wislizenii de Candolle and Q. agrifolia Nee.
Close investigation of one site, Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve, showed that C. quercicola was a
dominant, arboreal ant species, foraging primarily at night. The 1st description of the sexual castes
of  C. quercicola is provided, together with a guide to distinguish all castes ofC. quercicola from similar,
sympatric Camponotus species. We compiled a distribution map based on our own collections and
museum specimens. To test the phylogenetic position of C. quercicola within the North American
Camponotus sensu stricto group, we sequenced 385 bp of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome oxidase
I from 9 Camponotus species. C. quercicola did not form a clade with the North American C.
herculeanus species group to which it was previously assigned. Preliminary results of microsatellite
analysis suggested a polygynous colony structure in this species.

A customer reported a nest of yellow jackets in the front grill of a VW van. That was an unusual nesting site!

7 August 2019, Campo Seco Road area, near Sonora. Technician Erik Brians took care of this one.

Ryles Richards discovered an unusual yellow jacket nest: aerial yellow jackets had built their nest around a bird house. On August 2, 2019, Ryles brought back this nest, pictured below, from a customer’s house in Groveland.  We don’t often see aerial yellow jackets; most of ours are ground-dwelling. But this was extra special, being they used a birdhouse as a nesting platform, and managed to almost entirely encase it.

The customer did not want the birdhouse back, so we added it our collection of oddities.

Ryles Richards with the birdhouse yellow jacket nest/ Photo by Heather Nordstrom.

You can see the bird house inside the enveloping paper nest. Photo by Heather Nordstrom.

The birdhouse yellow jacket nest. Photo by Heather Nordstrom.

Backside view of the birdhouse, showing the backside of the yellow jacket nest.

Sideways view. The left side is the back of the birdhouse, and yellow jacket nest.

Looking up into the nest. The nest appears to have started on the eave of the birdhouse.

Horsehair worms, dead, in abundance, is something I see occasionally in melted snow, usually in tire track areas, in the meadow area of Bear Valley. Photo taken 20 June 2019. The snow was late to melt this year.

Dead horsehair worms in mud, 20 June 2019 Bear Valley California.

I found this Chalcedon Checkerspot, Euphydryas chalcedona, dying, and took these photos.