Hole-y Mantis Casing, Bugman!

Photo by Ned Harris 5/23/2014

Mantis egg casings (like this one) often have tiny exit holes. (They aren't from the mantises hatching, though.) Soon after the female mantis extrudes her eggs and the foamy goo that hardens into the egg casing, a parasitic wasp female lays her eggs in the goo. The wasp's eggs hatch first, the hatched wasp-lings eat some (but not all) of the mantis eggs (and such), then eat their way out of the egg casing. (Don't try this at home.)
Great molting mantis photos from our favorite bug lady, Margarethe Brummermann.

Wild Cotton

Photo by Ned Harris 5/23/2014

Photo by Ned Harris 6/2/2012

Fruit of Wild Cotton
Photo by Ned Harris 10/17/2010

Wild Cotton (Gossypium thurberi) is in the Mallow family. Plants in this family have flowers with five separate (as opposed to fused) petals. Their fruits (fruits are those things that have the seeds) are capsules. If you broke open the dried fruit above, you'd see dark seeds in each chamber of the capsule. You'd also see very sparse cotton fibers. (Click on the link above for a close up of the fruit.) These aren't the plants whose fibers are used for cloth, although they are related.

They're back!

Photo by Ned Harris 5/23/2014

Giant Mesquite Bug nymph, all alone (rather unusual, at this stage). They are in piles in many of the mesquites along the road. After hatching, they eat, shed their exoskeletons, eat more, shed more, and get their wings after the final shedding. The winged adults are less colorful than the nymphs, but they can fly : -)
Click on the link for more info on these cool insects.

On the move

Photos by Nancy Carey 5/25/2014

Still following their mom, four of this year's ducklings take a Sunday stroll down the road. Too cute for words!

Raspberry Mount Lemmon-ade

Photo by Marty Horowitz 5/19/2014

New Mexico raspberry (Rubus neomexicanus) is in bloom on Mt Lemmon, along with a whole host of other plants. When you head up to beat the heat, remember to be VERY careful with fire. Very, very, very dry - even where things look lush and green.

More news you can use:
If you like learning about plants, join Frank S. Rose (yes, the author of Mountain Wildflowers of Southern Arizona), Joan Tedford, and other bot heads for Mount Lemmon Summer plant walks. Thursdays starting June 5 through July 10. Meet at 9 am at the Palisades Visitor Center. Bring lunch and water.

If you've got kids 8 and under (older siblings welcome, too), there's summer story time. (All children must be accompanied by an adult.) All six Thursdays from June 5 through July 10, 9-10:30 am at the Sabino Canyon visitor center. Terrific topics! Fun and friendly naturalists! Crafty projects! Air conditioning! Collect them all!

Bleg (And Bonus Pic!)

My employment situation changed in March, and I'm still looking for full-time work. Although I'd love to do this blog (and related activities) full time as a volunteer, I need to be gainfully employed (for another 15 years or so).

I looked into various ways to 'monetize' this blog and found them all even less optimal than this blog-beg. Ads are annoying; founding a non-profit and getting tax-exempt status is expensive and time consuming; getting a percentage from amazon would require more hawking of books than I can reasonably do; finding sponsors for the blog would mean even less time actually blogging.

And so I ask you, dear readers, to consider sending a gift.*

If you like Your Daily Dose of Sabino Canyon, please click on the button below to make a secure contribution via Paypal. (You don't need a Paypal account.) (If you have a problem, click here to view the post online).

I'd rather be independently wealthy, of course, than ask perfect friends and perfect strangers for money. I agonized for weeks about this post. In the end, though, I'm looking at it as a fair trade. I hope you do, too.

Thanks so much.

*It's my 51st birthday on 5/27!

Anne is 51?! Outstanding!

Time for Tranquility

Photo by Dancing Snake Nature Photography

Peaceful Wings

Reakirt's Blue butterfly on a Willow Smartweed (Persicaria lapathifolia) near the dam. Part of Arizona Highways' Friday Foto gallery on the theme 'Tranquility' (5/16/2014).
Take a look at the entire show!