First Hike of 2022

The year has started out on a positive note.  On our first hike of 2022 we saw several ant nests.

Getting closer…

we saw Veromessor pergandei workers actively foraging. The ants were carrying grass seeds.

These are such beautiful ants.

The middens appear to be mostly one type of grass.

This is a new hiking trail for me and I hope to return to it over the year to see how the ant nests progress (and carry my camera instead of just my phone).

Did you see any ants today? What kind?

Insect Architects: Mining iNaturalist for Information

You’ve probably all discovered the iNaturalist app years ago, but I just started playing around with some of its capabilities.

For example, I’m interested in ant nests. The shape of the nest can sometimes help with identification. It is also fascinating to see what insects are capable of building.

Check out this cecropia ant nest, Genus Azteca.

© Nelson Wisnik, some rights reserved (CC-BY-NC)

It does lead to questions, such as where are the ants  and what is the nest made of?

Here’s a similar public domain image from Wikimedia by Alex Wild. It is from from a guayaba tree in Archidona, Ecuador.

These nests are made of carton, which may be  either wood particles, soil, and/or trichomes mixed with fungal mycelium.  So cool!

Mayer, V. E., & Voglmayr, H. (2009). Mycelial carton galleries of Azteca brevis (Formicidae) as a multi-species network. Proceedings. Biological Sciences, 276(1671), 3265–3273. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2009.0768

AntWiki is a great place to start if you want to learn more about Azteca.

The next nest doesn’t look like an ant nest at all. It looks like a piece of pottery.

© Chief RedEarth at iNaturalist
Cc by nc nd small some rights reserved

It seems impossible that ants made this structure, but you can see ants in the photograph. They are tiny specks in the center opening. The ants have been identified as Pheidole sykesii or the Indian harvester ant.

This video shows how small the ants are relative to the structure.

 

Alex Wild at Myrmecos has a post about it, too (see the comments).

What do you think of iNaturalist? Do you use it regularly?

Below is a collection of amazing insect nests.

Virtual Presentation About Ants for the General Public

If you are new to ants, you might enjoy this delightful presentation by ant enthusiast Merav sponsored by the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority.

She discusses a bit of ant biology, with an emphasis on ant nests. I particularly enjoyed some of the questions from the “audience.”

I’m supposed to give a presentation about insects (with some ants, of course) in January. I’m hoping it will be in person by then.  If not, this might be a fun alternative.

Have you seen any virtual presentations about ants recently? Are they available for public viewing?