Saturday, January 13, 2024

Testimonials

Leon G.

“I'd used Clarks's for almost twenty years, but didn't get what I wanted in Rio Vista back then.

Over the past nine years we've been overrun by ants, wasps and the field mice from Hell. Forget Mickey Mouse, these guys wanted to take over the whole garage. They got in through a tiny crevice under a door sill. I used over thirty hardware store traps before getting Baker Pest Control involved. No more problems for the past two years. 🙂

Every problem was taken care of without any fuss.They're dependable and affordable and worth every Cent."

Leave us a review, we would love to hear from you!


707-451-3985
21D Commerce Place
Vacaville, CA 95687

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Diversity of Wasps

Wasps are a diverse group, estimated at well over a hundred thousand described species around the world, and a great many more as yet undescribed. For example, almost every one of some 1000 species of tropical fig trees has its own specific fig wasp (Chalcidoidea) that has co-evolved with it and pollinates it.

Many wasp species are parasitoids; the females deposit eggs on or in a host arthropod on which the larvae then feed. Some larvae start off as parasitoids, but convert at a later stage to consuming the plant tissues that their host is feeding on. In other species, the eggs are laid directly into plant tissues and form galls, which protect the developing larvae from predators, but not necessarily from other parasitic wasps. In some species, the larvae are predatory themselves; the wasp eggs are deposited in clusters of eggs laid by other insects, and these are then consumed by the developing wasp larvae.

The largest social wasp is the Asian giant hornet, at up to 5 centimetres (2.0 in) in length. The various tarantula hawk wasps are of a similar size and can overpower a spider many times its own weight, and move it to its burrow, with a sting that is excruciatingly painful to humans. The solitary giant scoliid, Megascolia procer, with a wingspan of 11.5 cm, has subspecies in Sumatra and Java; it is a parasitoid of the Atlas beetle Chalcosoma atlas. The female giant ichneumon wasp Megarhyssa macrurus is 12.5 centimetres (5 in) long including its very long but slender ovipositor which is used for boring into wood and inserting eggs. The smallest wasps are solitary parasitoid wasps in the family Mymaridae, including the world's smallest known insect, Dicopomorpha echmepterygis (139 micrometres long) and Kikiki huna with a body length of only 158 micrometres, the smallest known flying insect.

There are estimated to be 100,000 species of ichneumonoid wasps in the families Braconidae and Ichneumonidae. These are almost exclusively parasitoids, mostly utilising other insects as hosts. Another family, the Pompilidae, is a specialist parasitoid of spiders. Some wasps are even parasitoids of parasitoids; the eggs of Euceros are laid beside lepidopteran larvae and the wasp larvae feed temporarily on their haemolymph, but if a parasitoid emerges from the host, the hyperparasites continue their life cycle inside the parasitoid. Parasitoids maintain their extreme diversity through narrow specialism. In Peru, 18 wasp species were found living on 14 fly species in only two species of Gurania climbing squash.

Read more, here.

707-451-3985
21D Commerce Place
Vacaville, CA 95687

Friday, December 29, 2023

Wasps

A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder. The wasps do not constitute a clade, a complete natural group with a single ancestor, as bees and ants are deeply nested within the wasps, having evolved from wasp ancestors. Wasps that are members of the clade Aculeata can sting their prey.

The most commonly known wasps, such as yellowjackets and hornets, are in the family Vespidae and are eusocial, living together in a nest with an egg-laying queen and non-reproducing workers. Eusociality is favoured by the unusual haplodiploid system of sex determination in Hymenoptera, as it makes sisters exceptionally closely related to each other. However, the majority of wasp species are solitary, with each adult female living and breeding independently. Females typically have an ovipositor for laying eggs in or near a food source for the larvae, though in the Aculeata the ovipositor is often modified instead into a sting used for defense or prey capture. Wasps play many ecological roles. Some are predators or pollinators, whether to feed themselves or to provision their nests. Many, notably the cuckoo wasps, are kleptoparasites, laying eggs in the nests of other wasps. Many of the solitary wasps are parasitoidal, meaning they lay eggs on or in other insects (any life stage from egg to adult) and often provision their own nests with such hosts. Unlike true parasites, the wasp larvae eventually kill their hosts. Solitary wasps parasitize almost every pest insect, making wasps valuable in horticulture for biological pest control of species such as whitefly in tomatoes and other crops.

Wasps first appeared in the fossil record in the Jurassic, and diversified into many surviving superfamilies by the Cretaceous. They are a successful and diverse group of insects with tens of thousands of described species; wasps have spread to all parts of the world except for the polar regions. The largest social wasp is the Asian giant hornet, at up to 5 centimetres (2.0 in) in length; among the largest solitary wasps is a group of species known as tarantula hawks, along with the giant scoliid of Indonesia (Megascolia procer). The smallest wasps are solitary parasitoid wasps in the family Mymaridae, including the world's smallest known insect, with a body length of only 0.139 mm (0.0055 in), and the smallest known flying insect, only 0.15 mm (0.0059 in) long.

Wasps have appeared in literature from Classical times, as the eponymous chorus of old men in Aristophanes' 422 BC comedy The Wasps, and in science fiction from H. G. Wells's 1904 novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth, featuring giant wasps with three-inch-long stings. The name 'Wasp' has been used for many warships and other military equipment.

Read more, here.

707-451-3985
21D Commerce Place
Vacaville, CA 95687

Monday, December 25, 2023

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Any Type of Bee is on the Menu for this Dragonfly 🐝 Into The Wild New Z...


New Zealand has 41 species of bee, 28 of them are native. Preying on their numbers is a terrifying aerial predator with 5-inch wings and serrated jaws: the Giant Bush dragonfly.

From: Into The Wild New Zealand

707-451-3985
21D Commerce Place
Vacaville, CA 95687