Meet the Neighbors: Buffalo Treehopper For the introduction to this series, see here. “Hi! I am a thorn. Don’t look at me closely.” This neighbor does his best to look like a thorn attached to the stem of a plant. That way, hungry birds will be less likely to find them. In profile, they have […]
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Meet the Neighbors: Plains Cicada For the introduction to this series, see here. If you live in the middle part of the United States, you might hear a loud mechanical-sounding buzz in the trees. I want to introduce you to the culprit, the Plains Cicada. The buzzing noise is produced by the males who vibrate
Meet the Neighbors: Punctured Tiger Beetle For the introduction to this series, see here. Ready to go out and find some tigers in your own neighborhood? You say tigers don’t live in your area? Well, then I have a surprise for you! Here is a tiger that I found last week. Well, strictly speaking, it
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Meet the Neighbors: A Differential Grasshopper For the introduction to this series, see here. I found this grasshopper on one of our pepper plants. The best way to identify this species is the striking pattern on its legs. This grasshopper species can be many colors though they usually have the same pattern. Differential grasshoppers live
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Science Snippet: Explore Saturn Saturn is currently 824 million miles from the Earth. Over the next few weeks, it will come within 816 million miles before receding again. For Saturn, this is fairly close; at times, it is more than a billion miles away! Still, 824 million miles is a very long distance. In my
Meet the Neighbors: A Transverse Ladybug For the introduction to this series, see here. Here is a Transverse Ladybug dining on some of the abundant aphids in my backyard. I was very happy to see this species as it has been declining rapidly and may soon be an endangered species. I am glad that my
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What’s In My Backyard? Meet the Neighbors: Four-banded Stink Bug Wasp For the introduction to this series, see here. I noticed this big beautiful wasp in my yard for the first time this year. These solitary wasps hunt stink bugs including the invasive Brown Marmorated Stink Bug. (Brown Marmorated Stink Bugs are originally from Asia.)
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What’s In My Backyard? Meet the Neighbors: Sutured Long-horned Beetle For the introduction to this series, see here. This bright red and black beetle loves to eat pollen. These beetles are easy to watch because they like to sit on big flat flowers and are slow-moving and not easily alarmed. They belong to the large
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What’s In My Backyard? Projects: Pressing Plants For the introduction to this series, see here. Today we are going to press plants and make an herbarium. An herbarium is a collection of dried pressed plants mounted on stiff paper. Herbariums are useful to showcase the plants of a certain location. Often scientists can learn a
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What’s In My Backyard? Meet the Neighbors: American Lady Butterfly For the introduction to this series, see here. Meet the American Lady Butterfly. This butterfly looks like the closely related Painted Lady Butterfly. How do you tell them apart? The secret is to look at the outside of the wings. American Ladies have two large
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