Nevada Bugs and Butterflies

Hi everyone,

We hope you are all enjoying this wonderful early spring weather and feeling healthy and happy. We wanted to take a minute and update you on what we’ve been doing during the pandemic, and what we are up to for 2022.

While we have not had many public events since 2020, we have still been doing work to support the insects of Nevada. We have been lucky enough to complete butterfly surveys for the Nevada Division of Natural Heritage, updating the status of endemic butterfly taxa across the state. We are excited to be doing what we consider very important work to help understand what effects development, climate change, and other stressors are having on our state’s imperiled butterfly populations. In 2019 and 2020 we were in the White Mountains of Esmeralda County, and in 2021 we visited many locations throughout most of northwest Nevada.

We will be continuing these surveys in 2022, and so are not taking on classroom outreach events through at least this summer. We have a planned training for our Nevada Butterfly Monitoring Network in May, so you can look here for updates on that coming soon. If you have questions about other events or about our survey efforts, please email us at info[at]nevadabugs[dot]org. Thank you very much and we hope to see you out in the field this summer!

Ruddy copper butterfly, Trail Canyon, White Mountains, Esmeralda County, Nevada

To our wonderful Nevada community-

Even though we can’t be together in person to share in the excitement of summertime insect activity, we at Nevada Bugs & Butterflies are doing our best to provide opportunities for you and your family to explore Nevada’s amazing biodiversity. We have two new at-home programs appropriate for kids and adults- our summer activity packet and our iNaturalist Summer Nature Challenge.

First,  our summer activity packet has a whole set of activities for children ages 6-12 and can be downloaded here to be printed out. It was lovingly designed by our Nevada Bugs board members and staff.

Our iNaturalist Summer Nature Challenge is an online program that kids and adults can participate in using their smart devices. For those unfamiliar, the iNaturalist app is a fun way to explore nature, learn about your local plant and animal species, and contribute to citizen science. See how many Nevada bugs, butterflies, and other plant and animal species can you discover between June and September 2020!

Here’s how it works:
1. Download the free iNaturalist app from wherever you download your apps, or go to the iNaturalist website (you can contribute photos you’ve downloaded onto your computer from there).
2. Get outside!
3. Take pictures of all the bugs, butterflies, plants, and animals that you find using iNaturalits.
4. Add your observations to the project: Nevada Bugs & Butterflies Summer Nature Challenge 2020
5. Share your pics on social media using the hashtag #myNVbugs so we can see what you’re seeing!
Get out there and EXPLORE! #nvbugsandbutterflies #myNVbugs #summerchallenge2020 #getoutside #inaturalist #citizenscience #communityscience

iNaturalist is a great way to contribute photos of your local insects, other animals and plants all year round

Update: Our winter sale has closed! Thank you to everyone who ordered!

Nevada Bugs & Butterflies is having a winter sale! You can now purchase from a selection of items that are handmade by our board members, staff, and dedicated volunteers. We currently have two different native bee houses, Nevada bee tea towels, and a selection of 15 Nevada bee ornaments. All items are limited quantity, so order today! All proceeds go directly to Nevada Bugs & Butterflies, supporting our educational programs throughout the year. You can learn more and see them all on our winter sale website.

Nevada shaped native bee house

Tea towel with our Nevada Bee motif

We are so excited for the 2017 season of our science center and butterfly house to begin! We are putting in the finishing touches for the various activities, and the garden is looking better than ever. As usual, we will be open Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays from 10am-3pm (except Saturday, July 1), and will close on Sept 9.

We also just wanted to remind our visitors that there is a detour due to the 2016 winter flooding in Lemmon Valley. Lemmon Drive is closed at Military Rd., and the best route takes Military Rd. and then goes around the west side of the valley.

Google and Apple Maps do not have adequate detour instructions at this time, so please follow the directions below when heading to our site this summer. If you need help finding us during our open hours, feel free to call us at 775-200-8774. We can’t wait to see everyone out there this summer!

Directions from Reno:

• Take US-395 N to exit 74, then right on Lemmon Dr. for 0.9 mile.
• Turn left on Military Dr. for 2.5 miles.
• In quick succession, turn right on Echo Ave., left on Mt. Limbo St., and right on Bravo Ave./Albert Way. Total about 1 mile.
• Turn left on Ramsey Way for 0.7 miles.
• Turn right on Lemmon Dr. for 0.4 mile.
• Turn left on Oregon Blvd for 1 mile.
• Turn right on Fir Dr. for 0.9 miles. Park on Fir Dr. or by the big red workshop on Matterhorn Blvd. Please do not park on Matterhorn Blvd.

Map of detour directions for 2017

We are excited to be able to publish our Nevada Bee Identification Guide! This handy 2-page reference can help you tell apart several of the most common types of native bees in our state, as well as how to tell bees from flies and wasps. Please feel free to download the pdf file using the link below; we also have copies available at our public outreach events and at the science center in the summer. This guide was created in partnership with graduate students at the University of Nevada, Reno, the university’s Museum of Natural History, Nevada Fish and Wildlife, and the Pollinator Partnership.

PDF File: Nevada Bee Guide

Just a quick note that Nevada Bugs and Butterflies has changed its phone number! As always, you can also always email us!

Call for info or to schedule a group outreach visit!

With the arrival of Thanksgiving this week, and as the weather continues to change and remind us that winter really is coming, it seems like an appropriate time for Nevada Bugs and Butterflies to reflect on yet another busy and successful year. We finished our fourth season at the butterfly house with 2,284 visitors (by far our highest attendance yet), meeting hundreds of new families and students and hosting our 3rd annual monarch tag and release event. 2016 was also a wonderful year of community outreach events, including our native bee talk with Dr. Joe Wilson, a plant and animal inventory of Idlewild Park with Truckee Meadows Parks Foundation, programs at Washoe County libraries, and a local insect workshop at the Oxbow Nature Study Area. Finally, the Nevada Butterfly Monitoring Network (NBMN) had a successful inaugural season, with seven dedicated volunteers monitoring 9 routes in natural areas, contributing valuable data and laying the foundation for a long-term dataset of butterfly diversity in our region.

All these programs would not have been possible without the dedication of many people, including our board of directors, our 7 amazing science education interns Bradlyn, Dylan, Ellen, Irene, Javier, Rebekah, and Tiffany; our volunteers from the Sanford Center’s RSVP program Bradley, Deborah, and Patty; our NBMN volunteers; and countless other volunteers at the butterfly house and outreach events throughout the year who volunteered over 1,200 hours of their time and energy to make this year so successful. Thank you!

Finally, we would like to thank our donors and the continued support of foundations (read more below) whose generosity enables us to carry out our mission. Our organization has always been community-supported, and as the holiday season approaches, your end-of-year contributions are a significant part of how we prepare our goals for the coming year. You can make a tax-deductible donation to Nevada Bugs by clicking the link below, or even support us with your holiday shopping (see below). Either way, your contributions will go directly toward providing high quality science education in the Reno area in 2017.

Thank you again to all our visitors, volunteers, donors, and other supporters, and have a wonderful holiday season!

–Kevin & Cynthia

Searching for grasshoppers amongst the flowers

Boys and Girls Club of the Truckee Meadows visiting in June

Cooler days and earlier nights can only mean one thing- fall is soon approaching, and with it the last two weekends of our 2016 summer season! That’s right, our last open days will be  Sept. 15-17 and 22-24! If you haven’t made it out yet, these cooler days in mid-September are a great time to visit- the sunchokes are blooming with bright yellow flowers, bees are still busy collecting pollen and nectar, and skipper butterflies are flitting about the garden.

And, for the 3rd year in a row, we’ll be hosting our monarch butterfly tag-and-release event during our open days on Sept 15-17. Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) in the United States are famous for their migration each winter; monarchs east of the Rockies head to Mexico, while those west of the Rockies, including in Nevada, head to the coast of California. Our event is part of a citizen science project called the Southwest Monarch Study, aimed at understanding and conserving the monarch migration of the western United States. We’ll have a short introduction to monarch biology followed by tagging an adult monarch (using a small adhesive sticker like the one above) that is then released to complete its migration. These tags can then be recorded by observers in their overwintering habitat. This year our presentations will take place on the hour from 11-2 each of our three open days.

We hope to see you out there in the next couple weeks to enjoy this beautiful late summer in Nevada!

Monarch with tag, 2015

Hi folks! Just a reminder that we are closed Saturday, July 2nd, for the 4th of July holiday weekend. We will reopen on Thursday, July 7th, and will be open regular hours (Thurs-Fri-Sat, 10-3) until September 24th. Thank you and enjoy the holiday weekend!

The end of our butterfly house season is fast approaching (can you believe only two more weekends?), and we are closing out with a fun family event. On our last two sets of open days, Sept. 10-12 and 17-19, we’ll be having our second annual monarch tag and release event! This is part of a citizen science project called the Southwest Monarch Study, aimed at understanding and conserving the monarch migration of the western United States. We’ll have a short introduction to monarch biology followed by tagging an adult monarch that will be released to migrate south towards the coast of California. These tags can then be recorded by observers in their overwintering habitats, such as Pacific Grove and Pismo. We’ll have a presentation once an hour from 10:30-2:30 each day (weather permitting). This is a great opportunity to see the butterfly house and garden in the beauty of late summer and learn more about this beautiful and endangered native butterfly. Hope to see you there!

Come help us support this great citizen science program!