Ants
Here in San Antonio, in a matter of months, I have found 38 species of hymenoptera. I can't list all of the wasps, bees, and sawflies by name because I don't know them. I do, however, know my ants well and shall list them, some with names I've given for fun, others with real, common names.
1. Red ants with shiny exoskeletons and dual-noded pedicles. Lives everywhere.
2. Red ants with fingerprint-like textured exoskeletons, with dual-noded pedicles (I believe they are called "Pavement ants").
3. Very small shiny black ants with no pedicle nodes (called "sugar ants" by most people here. Study shows them NOT to be sugar ants). Hunts small lice/mites after the 408 Dickman garden is watered. Hunts by running until bumping into the gray, small target arthropod, and *Blip!* eats quick, like eating a pixel off of a screen. Mills around other ant colonies all the frickin' time. Always in the middle of bigger colonies' work.
4. Small shiny black ants with dual-noded pedicles. Hard to f***-ing get. Everywhere around.
5. Black ants with very long legs and antennae. Antennae are as long as the entire body of the ant. They are the fastest species I have yet encountered here in San Antonio. Commonly called "Crazy Ants." Big colonies, hundreds, thousands of individuals. Big forage range, thirty feet or so, maybe bigger. One of two inhabitants of the San Antonio Botanical Gardens, other being small no-node black ants.
6. Reddish Ants with huge frickin' heads, so large as to inhibit turn-over if knocked supine. Lived by yellow ants in San Pedro Park.
7. Red-and black ants with spade-shaped shiny abdomens and red heads. "Spade Ants." Tree dwellers, grass-dwellers, HUGE colonies, HUGE forage range of forty feet or more per colony. Often walks with abdomen pointed up towards the sky. Lives all over the place.
8. The "WAR MACHINE." An ant that has eyes like a hammerhead shark and an exoskeleton like battle armor. A head like a flattened square. Thoracic spikes and side-spiked dual-noded pedicle. Gray all over. Black eyes. I found just ONE ONCE. Lived by the giant black ant in San Pedro Park. See sketch below.
9. Yellow ants. Big colonies. Huge. Thousands of individuals. Large forage range.
10. Curly-antennaed ants that remind me of joined hot dogs. Found in Paul's backyard. Black.
11. The "Chocolate ant" with very interesting dual swells in the pedicle area. I remember it being brown. Its color varies along segments. Tree-dweller.
12. A really very big blackish ant, with predictive intelligence. Largest of all ants. Larger than a shiny dual-node red ant queen. Small nest, small population.
13. "Trailblazer Ants" found in well-worn pounded-down trails. Red, not shiny, big (size of four shiny dual-node red ants, approximately). Big heads, HARD heads, no sting. Large colonies, long range, blazes its own trails through sand--creates small, walled trails from intense single-file walking.
14. "Velcro Ants." Spiked red ants, covered in hairs resembling hooked velcro. Not shiny; dull, armored like WAR MACHINE. Square heads with place to fold antennae down into, much like the places antennae for stereos are folded--into form-fitting slots. Lives around spade ants. Very small colonies. Found only in inner courtyard of Officer's club.
Ant sketches and pictures. |
The Tarantula Hawk
THIS...is called a Tarantula Hawk Wasp. I named it the Harlequin because it's absolutely gorgeous and worthy of praise. Jonathan caught it, I pinned it, made its container, basically did everything, and Jonathan gave it to his girlfriend and got love from his girlfriend and all I got was this stupid T-shirt. So anyway, this thing, it paralyzes tarantulas with that wicked modified ovipositor there (stinger, for the layman) and drags it to its underground lair, wherein it lays its eggs on the unfortuante tarantula. Then the larva hatches and eats the spider alive, saving the internal organs for last. Why? To keep it fresher, longer! I also caught a Cicada Killer, which is yellow and black and about three times bigger than the Harlequin. Its mode of killing is largely the same, and its larvae do just the same, killing and eating. |