#Fire ants

[thatsbelievable]

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I got jumped by fire ants.

[revoltrebel]

Deny.

The fascists, the Nazis, the oligarchs—their regime of rot and repression. Their lies, their control, their stranglehold on the people. Refuse them. Reject them. Resist them.

Defend.

The innocent, the weak, the oppressed—those who bear the weight of their greed. Stand unshaken. Shield the future. Hold the line and push it forward.

Depose.

The corrupt, the tyrants, the parasites—tear down their gilded throne of lies. No compromise. No mercy. We do not beg for change. We take it.

🫡🔥🐜

[mushrooms-and-millipedes]

Fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) making a meal of a dead bumblebee (Bombus impatiens)

[irequirealobotomy]

you must be tired from all that scrolling. this is benjamin, a little peasant girl. she brought you a snack. dont tell the queen. 🤫

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[tf2daily404]

Day 58: fire ant pyro -bert

[adragonsoulants]

So the myrmica nuptial flight!

This was a funny journey which was kicked off by finding a dead winged queen outside of a tetramorium nest! I was like is it a tetramorium queen? No it feels too small, she wasn't much bigger than the workers and she has two petiol just like tetramorium do, but something still isn't right... Anyways I had my eyes peeled for alates and when I was sitting outside eating dinner what did I see? A drone!

I was finding quite a few, some of them were being carried off by other ant species for their dinners. I found a couple more queens but they were all dead too, few of them getting carried off by ants again too.

So obviously what ever nest these alates are coming from must be bustling, finding those could help me ID them. Since my though at first was Tetramorium, I go around to all the Tetramorium nests I know of. Sure they were busy but no alates in sight, plus it's still early for them, I think they're July fliers.

Was finding drones everywhere, some even landing on me.

So this was reenforcing my feelings that it's definitely not a tetramorium, but what could it be? I know it's not a solonopeis. And then the word hits me, what if it's myrmica. I was actually confusing myrmica for messor again but I was right! Myrmica they are! And around the same time I stumbled upon what I was pretty sure was a busy myrmica nest!

Looks like they had just been fighting with some tetramorium workers as their bodies were laid about.

These guys are so tiny I had a hard time finding them when I was looking for them again even though I knew right where they were.

They're probably only slightly bigger than red velvet mites.

Now I never saw alates coming from this nest, so it's possible it was just a coincidence that these guys were active at the same time.

I ended up returning to where I was finding the drones hoping to at least spot some queens. It was starting to get dark and oh boy, let me tell you, looking for these ants was hard. From a distance such as standing normally the queens look just like a tetramorium workers. Get closer and you can see they're a bit longer with their double petiol being more pronounced and longer. They also move slower. But that's it, my only tellers were being slightly longer and slower.

Despite that I did manage to find the queens pretty easily! That must mean there were a bunch around as I caught 4 total within probably about 5-10 mins of catching the first one. All within about a 6 ft radius

These guys are likely polygynous, and also semi-claustrial. So they get a little foraging space but I may end up reducing them down to just the tube, we'll have to see on that one. I've never kept a semi-claustrial species before and I can't find a whole lot of specific information on keeping myrmica outside of Myrmica rubia which it's unlikely these ladies are M. rubia, as it doesn't appear that the invasive species has been recorded in my state.

The good news is, what information I have found, they say that this species is generally pretty easy to keep!

Anyways, thanks for reading this, I'll try and keep you all posted on what I end up doing with these ants!

[meklarian]

Fire Ants and deceased Beetle (unsure of id on both) Hassayampa River Preserve Wickenburg, Arizona, USA March, 2019

I believe these are southern fire ants and a desert stink beetle, but getting good search results for these species is difficult due to the overlap with insects that are considered pests.

[fruitybugboyart]

Welcome these three lil ants to the Pretty Bug Club! (Their names are Alfred, Bob, and Steven)

2023

digital art

Available as stickers and totes on my redbubble!

[head-archivist-mag-institute]

Fire ant attack 😁🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜

EUGH-

...I'll get the traps myself.

[69bahaha]

hivey naycha

[revoltrebel]

We, The People.

We, The Taxed to Exhaustion.

We, The System’s Silent Victims.

We, The Downtrodden Masses.

We, The Voices Shouted Down.

We, The Casualties of Endless Wars.

We, The Deliberately Forgotten.

We, The Righteously Angry.

We, The Ever-Prepared.

We, The Swarming Legion.

We, The Blazing Fire.

We, The Resilient Ants.

We are more than mere ‘Facebook warriors’—we are the many, united and ready to transform the very fabric of this system. Join us or step aside.

[mushrooms-and-millipedes]

Hello and welcome to

Cooking for Ants 🐜

Today I’m going to try making the Bhatkar & Whitcomb (1970) artificial diet food! For ants! This is described as a complete diet with everything ants will need.

(Post-It (keep all my lab recipes on post-its))

Add honey, add egg, add vitamin (sorry guys, I realized that I got the one daily vitamin for MEN although all ant workers are female 😔)

Blend

Mmmmmm doesn’t that look appetizing

Cast, slice into cubes

The Pseudomyrmex pallidus don’t really care

But the fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) seem to LOVE it. I’d mark it as a success overall :)

[brella-boi]

Day 3: Little Fire Ants.

Theres SOOO tiny oh my god. Please look them up I am enamored