Collecting experience in Texas and Arizona during early May

[pohchunyee]

Reading this is like I was there at Arizona... very nice!!!

 

[sbugir]

Very cool, is the Horned lizard/toad the one that shoots blood out of its eye?

 

[yen_saw]

Reading this is like I was there at Arizona... very nice!!!

Thanks Chun.

Very cool, is the Horned lizard/toad the one that shoots blood out of its eye?

A few species of horned lizard are able to do that. They'll also inflate their body to several times larger than its original body size when being threatened. But i actually shoot the lizard from a distance so the lizard won't run away or felt threaten. The following pic is the actual distance from the lizard, can you find the horned toad??

There are many type of lizards around Margarethe's house, here is another one

Zooming in

Plenty of bees gathering around the flowers in the garden

The day gets hot soon and it was not even 10 am (over here the sky turns bright as early as 5 am). The bird is resting in the nest

Margarethe decided to bring Motte and I out to a deserted compound next to her home.

Heard a woodpecker pounding on cactus, a huge cactus

Nice woodpecker, probably building a nest.

(To continue)

 

[yen_saw]

As we are walking further away from Margarethe's house, the desert is getting dryer and hotter. But that also means insects will be hiding on shady places. Underneath every cow dung there is almost certain to find a scorpian. Flipping over one we saw a spider and scorpian share the same refuge.

This spider is not afraid of us.

But the scorpian will try to dig in, especially when disturbed.

Here is a cow dung....

Flip it over, and there's the scorpian

This one is really dry, i wonder if there is anything below it...

Well, sure enough, another scorpian

And another one, wanna guess what's underneath it...yeah a wild guess.

What else... there is one in almost every dung we flipped over.

So now i know where to look for 'food' if i am lost in the desert :lol:

 

[yen_saw]

We continue to look for other insect but what we saw next was not insects or reptiles, there were couple of young ground squarrels which i mistaken as lizard at first. Both dive into the holes nearby but came out of the hole rather quick for some reason. Cody which was a really nice dog following us all this while suddenly went crazy and chased after the two ground squarrels. (One of the squarrel can be seen underneath the bush)

Cody totally ignored Margarethe's shouting and went for it..... a tragedy

Bummer one squarrel is gone....

Didn't take long for Cody to get the other one, poor thing.... Margaretha was furious...

Cody gets a bashing from Margarethe, he looks sad

Cody went home alone afterwards, with his tail down. I guess Cody will be sad until...... he sees another ground squarrel :lol: I asked Margarethe why the ground squarrels jump out from the holes, Margarethe then said she released a rattlesnake somewhere around this area yesterday.... uh oh. Must be in that hole, bad luck for the ground squarrels.

Motte spotted a colony of ants finally, but the ground was too dry and hard to dig up anything

We went back to the house and i had a new friend! but not Cody

(To continue - Back to Houston, more hunting)

 

[hibiscusmile]

Really nice final pic Yen!

 

[yen_saw]

Really nice final pic Yen!

Thanks Rebecca. I believed that is Tana (name after Montana) as i lived in Montana for 3 years that name stucked on my mind for some reason. The Arizona trip was great, especially observing the mantis habitat in early May. Motte wasn't so lucky on collecting ants so we hope to find him some queen ants back in Texas. I was approached by a undergrate biology student named Dayne who is working on studying mantis behaviour (on aggression trait) couple of months ago for some mantis, and his mentor happen to bea grad student studying harvester queen ants foraging behaviour, so i thought Motte would like to meet the person. Besides, i was interested in checking out how Dayne keep his mantis in the 'controlled' environment.

Here is a pic of us together in the lab in University of Houston. Dayne is on the right and next to him is Lara who is the grad student.

Here is where Dayne keeps his mantis.....

With all the parameters and lightning

We went checking out the Bear Creek park and found plenty of huge harvester ant nests. Here is one of the colony.

It was during mid day by then and we decided to meet at the same place again early next morning to check for any sign of queen ant cocoon or winged queen ant so we could predict the nuptial flight time. So we gethered around again at the same place. For some reason there are lot of harvester ant nests this year.

Each nest has many trails connected to the nest, here is one of the trails with harvester ants busy moving seeds back into the nest.

We went through several nests before finding one that could be the easiest to dig up without severely harmimng the nest.

Saw some queen ant cocoon on most of the nests, indicating the nuptial flight shohuld be around a month or so, depending on the next down pour.

 

[yen_saw]

While looking for ants, Dayne found a red ear slider haha!

The following day we went to several spots looking for swarm of ants mating site with the guidance of my bug friend David. We found some mated queen ants on a few gas stations and store. The nuptial flight have taken place probably a day ago or so and plenty of dead males around. These are the Texas leaf cutter ants.

The queen ants of this species is one of the largest in the world.

The male has smaller head

Some queen missed out the mating swarm and still carry wings

Few of the Texas leaf cutter queen ants from the group we found.... Motte is a happy camper! Caught plenty and Motte spent lot of time packing them to bring back to Germany

(To continue)

 

[Hypoponera]

Hey wait a second! How about sending one or two of those leaf cutter queens my way!! Guess our next meet up will have me going to Houston rather then Tucson.

 

[yen_saw]

Hey wait a second! How about sending one or two of those leaf cutter queens my way!! Guess our next meet up will have me going to Houston rather then Tucson.

Mike, sorry the Atta texana nuptial flight season appear to be over in my area. They only swarm during the new moon phase from April to June. You may want to ask Motte (Chris) to trade some The queen can easily fetch more than idolomantis in Europe, and a colony could worth more. Yeah sure we could meet in HOuston next time I will bring you around but the drive from NM to east Texas is far less interesting than the one you took (to Tucson) i have hard time keeping myself awake the last time i drove across TX state! But the Texas leaf cutter ant swarm should worth the trip SOme other species of queen ants Motte collected

Also a Componatus queen

We also found the nuptial flight 'aftermath' for the dreaded fireants

Also spotted a cool insect

Takin a fruit fly using the front legs and sapping up with the probosis

Some beetles and mole crickets captured around the parks

Motte also brought back a few paper wasp colony

(to continue)

 

[PhilinYuma]

I could look at these pix for ever, Yen! Thanks again. Love those paper wasps, even though they are an exception that wrecks my handy dandy distinction between hornets and wasps, that I made recently

Did your friend Motte happen to say what he thought the species was? From the brown coloration and location, I would guess Polistes major castaneicolor, but I am a very long way from being expert. This genus, Polistes, is interesting in that it appears to be a transition between solitary and fully social wasps.

 

[yen_saw]

I could look at these pix for ever, Yen! Thanks again. Love those paper wasps, even though they are an exception that wrecks my handy dandy distinction between hornets and wasps, that I made recently

Did your friend Motte happen to say what he thought the species was? From the brown coloration and location, I would guess Polistes major castaneicolor, but I am a very long way from being expert. This genus, Polistes, is interesting in that it appears to be a transition between solitary and fully social wasps.

Your guess is as good as Motte Phil. Except that yours is even more specific (to the species). This species appear to be socialize type. Motte told me a few hatched out during his trip back to Germany.Sorry for dragging this thread so long. Following are few more photos taken at several parks around Houston area.

A type of ground wasp ready to get into the hole, Motte told me the scientifica name by I kept forgetting.

Another type of wasp

Motte found this spider on the fence.

and brought back some egg sac too, i have no idea this live on my house's fence.

Few spiders

other bugs

a pseudoscorpian

Sorry have to end the thread abruptly, due to my recent assignment at work there have been little time left for my hobby. I hope to be able to come back and share more photos again, there are still plenty of photos left still in the memory card.

All in all, looking for bugs during the dryer season is not as easy, unlike the wetter season when insects are everywhere. However, if one can locate the spot with green vegetation and moisture it is not difficult to find them as most of the insects would stay close to the water source during dryer season. I hope you'll have fun following this thread and thanks for looking.

 

[PhilinYuma]

I guess that all good things come to an end. This thread has been an absolute delight for me, Yen, and I am sure for many others as well.

Your friend Motte is very wise in generally not going to species level without a good dichotomous key and a dissecting microscope. The second of your two latest wasps cannot be accurately taken below the family level, Ichneumonoidea, from a photo or even a quick look. (I am assuming that the slightly out of DOF thing behind it is the ovipositer). The first one is easier, especially in this area and is an Ammophila sp. To help you remember the name, here is the stupid explanation that I gave on a local website, years ago:

Ammophila means "ammunition loving". These wasps normally have all black abdomens but in areas like Yuma, which has a USMCAB, they carry off the ammunition used in the planes' machine guns which contain depleted uranium (25mm DU rounds). After eating these for a while, the tip of their abdomen begins to glow red.........

I got a nice note from the moderator, saying that though it was incredible to him, some folks actually believed what I wrote so would I desist or use smiley faces or something.

Of course, maybe yr friend called them Sphecid wasps, which is a bit further back. Fortunately, I don't have a stupid story for that.

 

[ismart]

This thread has been a real pleasure to follow. Thanks yen for sharing your pics with us. In the future when you have time. Please post the rest of your pics.

 

[animalexplorer]

Super adventure thhread Yen! You should go to South America, you would love it. It would probably hard for you to leave because you would end up liking it there so much.

 

[yen_saw]

Thanks Paul, I am hoping to visit Arizona again this coming September.

South America is like my dreamland, i would like to visit the Amazon before my grave.

 

[Slinkytreekreeper]

Thanks for the journey Yen, enjoyed the ride.

 

[Peter Clausen]

Looks like this post is seeing some action again suddenly. I expect to move to Tucson this summer. Talked with a mutual friend last week and he said you would be in AZ again this summer. Perhaps our luck will work out better this time.

 

[yen_saw]

Thanks for the journey Yen, enjoyed the ride.

You are welcome, it was fun for me to look back at those pics too eventhough it was only half a year ago.

Looks like this post is seeing some action again suddenly. I expect to move to Tucson this summer. Talked with a mutual friend last week and he said you would be in AZ again this summer. Perhaps our luck will work out better this time.

See you in September Peter! Maybe with this move Stagmomantis gracilipes will no longer be a stranger in this forum.

 

[Morpheus uk]

What happens to all these inverts after they have been captured?