California Showers Bring Salamanders: Please Help us Find Them
Join us in some community science research to help us study salamanders across the L.A. area!
Look who didn't get stuck at La Brea Tar Pits
When colleagues at La Brea Tar Pits contacted me, seemingly out of the blue, to request my help with camera trap monitoring in one of their excavation sites, I was already eager to pay them a visit.
Los Angeles is Being Invaded by Frogs!
Sunday, September 6, 7:54 pm, my phone vibrates with an incoming text message.
The Mesmerizing Eyes of Eristalinus Taeniopa
This week, we bring you a visual treat from BioSCAN's Principal Investigator, Curator of Entomology, and Photographer Extraordinaire, Dr. Brian Brown.
It's a bird? It's a plane? It's a White-Lined Sphinx Moth!
At the end of every work day, before I head home into that lovely L.A. rush hour traffic, I walk through the Nature Garden at one of my favorite times of the day, the magic hour as the sun sets, the diurnal animals hunker down, and the nocturnal ones get ready for action. 
Bird's Nest Fungi, Exploding Eggs, and Mushroom Soup
Yay! Today I documented the first bird's nest fungus, Cyathus sp., in the North Campus
Backyard Bobcats of L.A.
“Miguel, I found a dead bobcat!” It was 8:30 in the morning when I received a call from my friend Jessie Jennewein.
Lizard Love Bites
Have you recently seen lizards in L.A. that appear to be biting each other, or maybe they are trying to eat each other?
California Holly: How Hollywood Didn't Get its Name
In Nancy Dale’s 1986 epic tome of Southern California native plants, Flowering Plants, she has this to say about Toyon — aka California Holly, Christmas Berry, or, if you’re a botanist, Heteromeles arbutifolia: