Mini Moth Lighting
I wasn’t super inspired to set up for moth lighting on Tuesday night. I had said I was going to but then it seemed like we were going to get a storm so I wandered around in looking for other things and found a cool slime mold with itty bitty beetles on it.
Then for some reason moved my whole moth lighting setup back to where I had it last year. I did get a few interesting visitors.
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You can see what everything is (plus a few other things) on my June 18 observations page.
European Fire Ant Adventures
Today was unbearably hot and I was off of work. I spent most of the day sorting photos and just trying to stay cool indoors but I had this brilliant idea that I was going to go wade in the creek and look for aquatic life. I really never go out and about without shoes and socks and long pants. I guess it’s a habit—being ready to help with hay growing up. You are not going to have a good time doing hay in shorts and sandals. But I still wear this armor because it also helps me avoid poison ivy, some mosquitos, sunburned legs, maybe some ticks, nettles, goose grass rashes, etc. But I figured it was hot enough today to go to the creek in crocs and no socks and roll up my pants.
I was on my way there when I ran into Jason and my dad. Jason asked if we had fire ants around here, because he had gotten attacked while he and my dad were running the chipper shredder, clearing out some brush piles near the swamp.
A couple of the ants I’ve put on iNaturalist over the last few years were ID’d as European fire ants. I was skeptical at first because I thought fire ants were more an issue in the southern US.
If it was only one fire ant observation, I’d still be skeptical, but there are some pretty dedicated ant identifiers on iNaturalist and I generally trust their suggestions.
And it turns out European fire ants (Myrmica rubra) are not the same as the fire ants in the south. I think those are Solenopsis invicta. I don’t really know anything about those except their “fire” is also formic acid based.
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Jason said the stings felt like stinging nettles. We walked back over there to collect some so I could look at them under the microscope at work if I end up with any free time. I was a little worried about going to mess with a bunch of angry fire ants with no socks on so I was SUPER careful. I managed to collect a bunch without getting stung.
I put the containers on a table and went back down to the creek for my initial plan of cooling off in the water. It turns out there is so much poison ivy between me and my good creek spots that haven’t mapped in my mind because I’m usually wearing armor.
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I did find a cool spider building a web over the water but did not get a great photo. I think the heat was keeping me from appreciating much of anything so I didn’t look for long. I picked my way back to the main trail after a bit noticing several ants along the way that looked a lot like fire ants but I was nowhere near the original nest. And a bit later there was a burning sensation in my shoe.
There was at least one ant in my shoe and four stings. I ended up walking back to the house barefoot because irritated skin rubbing against a wet croc is very unpleasant.
I took my collected ants back to the house to stick them in the freezer and one of my containers, the one I knew I shouldn’t use, flew off the freezer door and peppered the inside of the freezer with loose dirt and ants.
If you live in my house, I hope you got bored and stopped reading a few paragraphs ago. It’s just pepper that got spilled in there. That’s all. Sometimes three peppercorns can stick together and look like an ant. You can’t prove anything. It was other kids.
Anyway, I can get more. There are lots of them and I know where they live.
What I’ve learned about European Fire Ants today
They like moist areas, especially under stuff like logs and brush piles.
They form supercolonies (multiple nests and multiple queens in an area)
Apparently they can take over habitats and displace native ants and change the plant life because ants are involved in seed distribution.
This VERY helpful insight—“double-crested cormorants may have a negative impact on European fire ant presence. When cormorants nest in trees, their defecation alters soil chemistry, killing the trees.”1
Wear shoes and socks and long pants (tucked into your socks) when in fire ant territory.
“The European fire ants also tend a variety of Homopterans with greater efficiency than local native ants, and as a result, increase populations of aphid and other honeydew producing insects feeding on plants.”2
Other cools bug photos from today
A Cool Ichneumonid Wasp
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Wooly Aphids
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https://www.invasivespeciescentre.ca/invasive-species/meet-the-species/invasive-insects/european-fire-ant/
https://ant-pests.extension.org/european-fire-ants/
As I have said before, love your text and photos. So good! Thank you for adding to my day.