myrmepropagandist

Camponotus punctulatus is a carpenter ant from Argentina. They make massive mounds in open pastures.

This might sound very pedestrian and boring but it's very odd that a carpenter ant is building mound.

Solonopsis (fire ants) make small mounds and are a real hazard because they sting. Camponotus punctulatus can't sting. Yet these carpenter ants change the landscape.

Very little documentation on these ants. Morphologically they look very similar to other carpenter ants.

I'm going to start calling bees and wasps "sky ants" and no one can stop me.

When I was looking into how bees sleep like this I found out about "festooning" this is something honeybees do and it's not well understood. When they are mapping out their honeycombs they may form chains with their bodies.

Of course army ants also make these kinds of chains when nesting in their bivouacs. (the bivouac is a nest made of the body of ants)

Ants and bees are related, and share the eusocial strategy. What else do they share?

https://www.buzzaboutbees.net/festooning-bees.html

Ants when infected with Ophiocordyceps fungi will climb a blade of grass and clamp on to it with their mandibles before they die. In this way when the fungi fruit emerges it stays high up to better spread.

How can a fungi induce such a complex sequence of actions?

What if it has some relation to the fact that many bees sleep... by clamping their mandibles on to a blade of grass for the night. Could the ant be activating some deep lost sleeping routine from it's wasp ancestry?

Imagine if someone was brushing your hair but they stopped before it was brushed enough.

Imagine if you protected your home from dangerous pigeons that could be up to *anything* but the people you protected didn't recognize how much you suffered to keep them safe!

Imagine if you wanted to simply eat a plant, just a bite for your health but you were told "no that is the pea seedling"

Can you imagine such inconsiderate horrors? Pica can. She lives with this every day and we should be thankful.

@Tak

"increasing ant diversity in your garden"

Will return advice how how to "get rid of ants in your garden" since that is the most common wanted search result for "ants" and "garden" and all other possibilities are, I guess, bad. The results are so shallow and obvious that I don't see the point of using a search at all.

@mxchara @cstross @Sibtodon

As if libraries were just collections of objects called books ... and not institutions meant to facilitate answering of questions, access to information and through that self-constructed understanding of The World.

It's like thinking that a school is just a list of facts on a hard drive or printed on paper, or if you like churches that a religious institution is a place that dispenses grape juice and dry crackers.

Or that a hospital is a box of bandages and drugs.

I'm so proud of her. She has raised all of those little ants by herself in the dark without eating once.

When I check on her she is always cleaning them, gently moving them and watching for when she will need to help clean them and free them from the pupal case when they are ready to move.

@cstross @Sibtodon

My grandmother drove a rural postal truck, my dad would ride in the back doing his homework and passing her the packages.

I will get up and fight over the damn post office.

@cstross @Sibtodon

The post office is in the constitution. I know they don't care about that but the post office isn't just notion it's one of the core institutions of this country. It is more legally hallowed and protected than schools or running water. (which raises some question IMO, but let us leave that be)

I do think they will try. But I also think this will be harder to do than they suspect. The depth of the resistance will catch them off guard.

And frankly I think they will fail.

Poll #2

By the end of the summer (Midnight Aug. 31) which of the two queens will have *more* workers?

Vote now! If you are right you get bragging rights. (valuable, rare)

(I think this could be very close... but anything could happen.)

By the end of the summer (Midnight Aug. 31) which of the two queens will have *more* workers?

Vote now! If you are right you get bragging rights. (valuable, rare)

(I think this could be very close... but anything could happen.)

Ant update. The young carpenter colony has 10 workers and more on the way.

The pavement ant queen has *so many* eggs. Ma’am? That’s too many eggs. How did you make all of those without eating? #antqueen #tetramoriumimmigrans #camponotus

If there are fewer than 16 ants it may mean that the metamorphosis failed. Or perhaps mother got hungry.

Currently the Camponotus queen has 15 workers.

This race is going to be intense! I'm going to run the poll again and see if opinions have changed.

https://sauropods.win/@futurebird/116808085599873405

A pupae cannot eat. It's like a caterpillar in a cocoon, but without the cocoon. All of their energy is going to transforming their body into an ant shape.

When everything is right the exoskeleton will harden and they will darken and become little ants ready to assist their mother in her plans for world (well sidewalk) domination.

When I see the young ants walking around I will connect her test tube to a little "outworld" where they can forage. Then the queen will lay a second batch of eggs.

Let's use antcounter.crazyants.de to count the eggs larvae and pupae in the images.

egg>> larvae >> pupae >> ant

A week ago she had:
29 eggs
17 larvae
0 pupae

Today she has:
0 eggs
7 larvae
16 pupae

It seems like nearly all of the larvae from last week have progressed to the next stage and will soon be ants. The eggs must have been used for food to make this happen. Ants can lay "trophic eggs" that are not able to develop and they use this to store and transfer food.

My Tetramorium immigrans (pavement ant) queen has made excellent progress. Her larvae are now pupae. (you can tell because they are now ant-shaped with legs) immigrans does not spin silk cocoons as my carpenter ants do. The queen keeps them clean and safe as they develop— she is their cocoon.(look at the second photo to see the progress she has made in just one week)

#antqueen #antkeeping #tetramorium #tetramoriumimmigrans #nature #petant #ants

@cstross @Sibtodon

The failing of this whole project has already begun. Our president is crying out "communists! communists!" and too many people are just think "... and?"

We are due for a correction, the question is how to shape it so it is persistent, durable and not co-opted. That will be hard.

The young people give me some hope. There are still people who want to be "public servants" who find glory in that service greater than millions of dollars.

@stevewfolds

Ask him what aspect of phylogeny is the most counterintuitive and upsetting to him. I bet he has some good examples.

Designating species and understanding living populations of creatures is important for science, but it's also important for ordinary people.

Lasius brunneus could be confused with Lasius niger (the labor day ant) and other common little fuzzy brown ants that people need to interact with talk about and understand.

That the "Jet Ants" (shiny little black ants like Lasius fuliginosus) are more closely related to niger than they are to Lasius brunneus is a little confusing.