tgwdlm is the story of an autistic guy who ends up in an unfamiliar situation and hates it
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dancing in the sparkling stars,
searching for you in the sky,
we'll find each other in every universe,
forever together we'll fly high 💛🩵💚
(happy late txt anniversary, I got busy the past two weeks and couldn't draw on time 😖 anyways, I hope you all enjoy!! yes I wrote this poem myself cause i didn't know what to say, decided to express my words through prose)
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Smaller Yellow Ant - Lasius claviger
Before covering the nuptial flights of this subterranean dwelling insect colony, I have some announcements for the blog. Firstly, the blog's text highlight color has finally been fixed. Text should now be highlighted in orange; give it a try. Secondly, I'm finally taking the step to enter YouTube, start a channel* and share these insects there. I hope you'll join me in this new venture. There will be an additional post covering this, but in the meantime you may refer to this blog link for additional information. Finally, yesterday was this blog’s 5 Year Anniversary! I feel quite sheepish in hindsight that the highlight color took 5 years to fix, but I'm not much of a programming whiz. My focus is, and always will be on the insects I find and to share the photography and videography I make with all of you, my dearest readers. Wow! 5 years. What a journey it has been. I'm incredibly grateful for all my followers (both old and new), the readers who frequent my blog, and the fellow bug-hunters on this website that have inspired me! I sincerely thank you! Furthermore, none of this would've happened or continued without the contributions, encouragement and support from my closest friends and my family. To them, I give all the thanks in the world and my deepest appreciation! And now, let's talk about Ants, nuptial flights and usurping queens! While tidying the yard due to the weather beginning to change , I was greeted by a flurry of winged alates emerging from the ground near a collection of buried backyard stones.
These images don't do the sheer volume of winged Ants justice, but there must've been hundreds emerging from their nest! It's a mad rush to spread out and secure a colony before the cold sets in (more on that to come). The backyard plays host to many Ant species, but this was the first time I've seen these before. False Honey Ants came to mind first since they don't mind the cold, but with no size disparity (and timing of emergence) it was clear that these alates were something else. The lemony-yellow color of the wingless worker Ants provided a clue, and I was directed immediately to the genus Lasius, more commonly known as Lemon Ants or Citronella Ants. They are named for more than just their colorful body; they can defend themselves and rouse a colony defense whose fragrance is similar to the scent of lemon. Though it may smell pleasant to us, I'm not sure if these Ants would taste very lemony. With the risks from bites, formic acid and soil sanitation conditions, I can't recommend you eat them; observing them should be enough. While I observed them, the scent was in action, and while the alates where docile and airborne, the workers are alert and I did get nipped a few times while poking near their colony's entrances. Compared to the worker Ants, the winged alates are much larger and appear to have more defined sclerotization, but they didn't seem inclined to bite me.
Naturally the winged Ants are stored up with fat reserves to prepare the young queens for initial building of a colony and the first wave of offspring that will tend the queen. Why so many alates though? Well, the answer is one even I didn't expect: this specie of Citronella Ant reportedly usurps (parasitizes technically speaking) the colonies of of other Citronella Ants that have already established nests slightly earlier in the year! Since they don't make their own colonies and competition is fierce, many individuals are born to grant the best opportunity possible to find a colony, infiltrate it, depose the queen inconspicuously and take her place! It is madness, but with winter on the way, it's every Ant queen for herself! However, it is reported that these Ants can forage during the colder months, similar to the False Honey Ant, assuming of course the specie I chose is accurate. I've ultimately settled on L. claviger as the time of emergence lines up (right on the edge of October) within the North American environment and from the sheer number of alates in flight. Distinguishing between species is very technical without an close-up observation of individuals, consideration of range and emergence flight, but identification down to the genus is easy if you smell lemons. If you wish to search for them, check under large stones or in the soil beneath rotting stumps. Since I know they're in the yard now, I'll see if I can share future posts with foraging Ants searching for colony provisions. Yellow coloration should make them easy to spot, but they may stay underground.
Pictures were taken on September 30, 2023 with a Google Pixel 4. Thank you all for an interesting 5 years, and for more years to come!
*Note: The channel was deliberately started so as to coincide with the anniversary of this blog. This makes tracking the anniversaries of both platforms much easier. Now onto the next media publishing step...
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¡First drawing of the year!
Glam! Chica Is officially one of my favs now 🩷, just look at her, She's so cute and i bet she's also a great friend. I can't stop imagining her wearing so many different outfits, so you might be seeing more content of her in the future.
Anyway, i'm like two weeks late but Happy New Year to everyone! ✨, i really hope y'all doing great.
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