jciv's Favorites

One of the best weeks/weekends ever at the Texas Master Naturalist State Conference down in the Lower Rio Grande Valley!
This evening, we did some black-lighting at Oleander Acres RV park -- they do some tremendous work with the pollinator garden, and it shows with the insect diversity! :)

Mom with two babies found on a old palm leaf that fell out of the palm. I placed the leaf off the ground in the shade next to some palm trees so hopefully she could climb up. They were gone the next day so hopefully they did.

This fly is a major pest in the Rio Grande Valley. USDA APHIS is working to control them by releasing sterile flies. To easily determine when a sterile one is caught in a trap, they are marked with a UV dye. I found three on the same bush tonight and all of them glowed. I was told they are dyed as pupae and the color is determined by the area of release. I guess the color for our area is pink.