Circus of the Spineless #69

Welcome to the January 2012 edition of Circus of the Spineless.

It’s time to make New Year’s Resolutions. If you are having difficulty generating some of your own, try these Circus of the Spineless Resolutions.

Resolve to:

1. Take advantage of unexpected gifts, like an emperor shrimp.

Dive with The BlennyWatcher Blog to see emperor shrimp in action.

2. Stop and watch the butterflies.


Trees, Plants & More has photographs of the following butterflies:
red pierrot
mormons
common castor
grass yellows

3. Pay attention to caterpillars.

Slugyard has a cartoon caterpillar and the butterfly it becomes.

4. Be vigilant for invertebrates out of season.

Rebecca in the Woods has Unexpected Arthropods.

5. Get to know tiny spiders.


Be amazed at Brainy dust posted by Wanderin’ Weeta

6. Take the road most traveled, like leafcutter ants.


Lower Dover Field Journal offers information about leafcutters.

7. Be as flexible as a neon flying squid.

Illustration from Wikimedia

Squid A Day has A Neon Sign of Climate Change

8. Be environmentally responsible.

Wanderin’ Weeta has A Sad Post about water quality.

9. See the world, and Dicathais orbita egg capsules, with a bit of humour.

Photograph from Wikimedia

Medlar Comfits says, “I’ve always been terribly ambitious.”

10. Learn to blend into your surroundings, especially if they change.

Video from Nothing Here But A Hole in the Ocean… at The Artful Amoeba

11. Have a big heart (like a sea squirt).

Kevin Zelnio of Deep Sea News has a video of sea squirt facts.

12. Participate in next month’s Circus of the Spineless at Beasts in a Populous City.

Circus of the Spineless: Call for Posts

Do you ever blog about invertebrates? Have you heard about Circus of the Spineless?

Circus of the Spineless is a blog carnival that started in 2005 to bring together bloggers who have an interest in animals without backbones. We’re hosting #69 here at Wild About Ants this month, and would love to see a recent post from you. Just send an email with your link to wildaboutants (at) gmail (dot) com and put “Circus of the Spineless” in the subject line.

Whether they crawl, swim, squirt or slither, send your posts this way! Edit:  If you could get them to me before Jan. 1, that would be great.

To see past carnivals:

Last month’s carnival was at Dave Hubble’s Ecology Spot.

#55 was here, called Museum of Invertebrate Art

Updates

Just a few updates today.

The October Circus of the Spineless is up at Wanderin’ Weeta. Fun to read, as always.

Also wanted to report two items that turned up almost exactly a year ago. Last week I saw the same kind of silverfish that I found in the opening of harvester ant nests again. I looked it up and I saw them last year in the first part of September. No better photographs than last year, but it was also in a harvester ant mound.

Two weeks ago I saw another “meet and greet” by rover ants. The first time I saw that October 10 last year. I’d really like to find out more about that behavior.

Anyone out there have any ideas?