June 21, 2018
Pollination represents a unique partnership between plants and pollinators. These are wild creatures working toward their own self-interest, so both the plants and the pollinators will do everything in their power to get the most bang for their buck out of the arrangement. In our previous post giving a rough overview of pollinators, we described […]
June 21, 2018
This week is National Pollinator Week; a week to draw attention to America’s diverse pollinator fauna. Pollinators are incredibly important, yet many species are imperiled by habitat loss, land use change, competition, disease, climate change, invasive species, and improperly applied insecticides. A pollinator is any animal that transfers pollen from one flower to another. Pollen […]
May 4, 2018
May the Fourth be with you! Just a few short days after celebrating Alien Day, Star Wars fans are likely celebrating this pun-tacular day with wookiee calls and reveling in the number of movies they can enjoy. The most famous characters in the movies, the Jedi, are able to control the energy of the universe […]
April 26, 2018
Today is Alien Day, a day to appreciate the Sci-Fi horrow/action Alien franchise! The date is not entirely random – today is April 26 (4-26), and in the first two films of the franchise, the titular creatures were encountered on the planetoid LV-426. While the creatures of the film are fictional, many aspects of their […]
April 18, 2018
Several of our technicians have noticed filth fly problems recently, suggesting that they are already gearing up for summer. As is the case with fruit flies, understanding the pest can be essential to finding and eliminating its source. Of the three most common filth flies, house flies are the smallest at a dainty 6-7 mm […]
March 20, 2018
Our last post about cellar spiders drew attention to how common names can lead to some confusion; it was not immediately clear what animal we were discussing until we clarified with more specific names. Naming issues can be more common than you might expect, so this post will walk through where insect names come from […]
