Miscellaneous Wanderings and Maunderings
Miscellaneous Wanderings and Maunderings
An interesting thing happened while I was watching the Army Ant raid near the Novomessor cockerelli nest. As I mentioned, the Novomessor cockerelli were nervous while the Army Ants passed by. There were guards around the nest entrance, and we…
In early April of 2004, my wife and I were walking our dogs through a patch of the Sonoran Desert in Southern Tucson. We would casually stop to look at the various ant nests as we went along. We had…
One of the strange things about the time we’re in now, this Time of Covid, is that we’re mostly locked down – there’s little to no travel. That means that people are doing things like going through old photos, mining…
Western Harvester Ants are pretty common here in Southwestern Colorado. They are part of the landscape – you can often see their nest mounds from the highway as you drive through the high desert. And if you watch the mounds…
One night in September of 2004, I was watching my favorite Odontomachus clarus nest When I noticed an Odontomachus worker carrying a Brown Lacewing back to the nest. The ant would proceed a few inches, then stop. She’d release the…
One night in July of 2004, I was visiting my favorite colony of Odontomachus clarus, and I came across a single Odontomachus clarus standing still on a rock. As I looked more closely, I saw that this was actually a…
As you may have noticed, I’ve got a lot of ‘favorite’ ants. Well, here’s another – Odontomachus clarus, the Trap-jawed Ant. Their mandibles are elongated, like a set of tongs. They can ‘cock’ their jaws in a wide-open gape. As…
In April of 2005, I was in Arizona’s Santa Rita Mountains, revisiting my favorite Pseudomyrmex apache nest. I watched the workers crawling on their Oak tree for a while – but then noticed a worker that was not on the…
I was walking along a trail in Arizona’s Santa Rita Mountains in August of 2004. It was a beautifully sunny day, and I was out anting. This trail led to a stream that I was interested in exploring, so I…
For much of the year, the desert can seem like a pretty empty place. If you go out in the early Summer, before the monsoons arrive, it’s dry, dusty, and hot. After the monsoons arrive, though, the feeling is very…