#Myrmica

[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!

[myrmica]

hi mer! why is your name mer and not myr (i have had to correct this many times)

i was named mer before i had this username!

[abyssalzones]

talking, what's it good for?

big birthday piece for my buddy mer @myrmica!!! merthday? sure let's go with that. he's managed to get me into lifesteal and while I may not have gotten to these two yet I'm fascinated by whatever they have going on based on the analysis I've heard...

the rituals. they're intricate

[irrealisms]

it's more like a very pointed argument - a heaven will be mine eclipse federation web weave for @mcytblraufest

thanks to my author @chipseclipse for creating a fic based on the heaven will be mine au! image credits under cut

Heaven Will Be Mine // Wikimedia Commons // Barrier Blocks: Lifesteal Season 4, a Study in Conflict by @myrmica // Finally Getting My Fight With Mapicc, PrinceZamVODS // the sun is a liar & but the sun is warm by @xelyin // Fixed Points of Quantum Gravity and the Renormalisation Group by Daniel F. Litim // Wikimedia Commons // Wikimedia Commons // Wikimedia Commons // Wikimedia Commons // Wikimedia Commons // Wikimedia Commons // Deliverance., SubzVodz_ // Taking Down ClownPierce, PrinceZamVODS // Wikipedia // no light no light by genesis frog

[ssseriema]

help i’m very very very new to lifesteal where do i begin i just started watching squiddo bc i absolutely love their other stuff and now im vibrating at the idea of loving this smp. where do i begin.

it really depends in what way you would like to watch it!!! like idk if youre more of a yt or stream watcher. squiddo videos are very high energy (and also do a great job at representing her pov during season 5) and if you wanna get deeper into it.... the trick that worked for me was to float around in youtube until i found a few people whose videos i really liked, then run with that. as a summary of each season:

season 1: its aight theres like a few yt videos

season 2: pvp sweat season kinda

season 3: pretty well rounded season. i recommend uhhhh clownzy pov (the gay one), rekrap, vitalasy, reddoons (every s3 video playlist)

season 4: the weird beast of lifesteal. absolutely disease inducing stuff if you can stand to pour a crazy time sink into it. i recommend princezam pov. more stream based than youtube based but theres youtube vids on it too (here's a VOD directory by @myrmica) (s4 summary by @cogmented) (every single season 4 video playlist)

season 5: the one with squiddo (and by default more awesome). this season is also really well rounded and a couple people like minutetech and jumperwho joined who have fantastic videos on long arcs. i rec them. (playlist of every season 5 video thank you @irrealisms)

season 6: latest season. so far its pretty awesome and theres a few vids on it that i havent watched yet (im a stream frog lol). heres a peer reviewed intro post with frequent streamers, pov recommendations, additional resources, etc. ive been watching princezam and jumperwho whenever they stream, and other povs on occasion like chiefxd, derapchu, hannahxxrose, kaboodle, and yea

other people who dont upload as often but are really good at it are roshambogames and ashswag

here is the lifesteal smp vod archive (thank you archivists)

if you need anything cleared up feel free to ask ^w^ and happy lifestealing!!!

[wyyrmwood]

I am once again bugposting. It's a painting of the Myrmica Pilosula ant!

[todaysbug]

December 28th, 2023

Large Blue (Phengaris arion)

Distribution: Found throughout the majority of the Eurasian continent; Europe, the Caucasus, Armenia, western Siberia, Altai, northwestern Kazakhstan and Sichuan. Considered endangered in Europe, and near-threatened throughout its distribution.

Habitat: Habitat varies, dependent on the presence of thyme and Myrmica sabuleti ants. Most common in heterogeneous landscapes, such as pastures.

Diet: Larvae feed on thyme throughout their first three instars, after which they feed on M. sabuleti larvae, or food provided to them by the ants. Adults feed on nectar.

Description: The large blue has been studied extensively as a brood parasite of certain red ant species, notably M. sabuleti (though it may also parasitise M. scabrinodis). After feeding on thyme until its fourth instar, the caterpillar will drop to the ground and emit pheromones similar to that of ant larvae, as well as imitating their behavior, prompting the ants to bring the caterpillar to their nest. Once it has infiltrated the nest, it will continue to mimic ant larvae while feeding on the real ones. Other members of the genus Phengaris will instead employ a cuckoo strategy, imitating queen ant larvae in order to convince the ants to feed them.

Here's a cool video about them!

Images by Pete Withers (adult) and T. Komatsu (larva).

[leadandblood]

More thoughts on insect!Jopson.

I do think he should be Hymenoptera. It just feels right.

But I've been thinking about what species exactly he should be. I've said a wasp before but now I'm not sure. It does feel right.. But also consider... Ants. Like a Manica rubida. Or Myrmica rubra. The ones with a sting. Or even a Formica rufa with the acid spraying (i think they're the ones who do it??)

I definitely want him to be dangerous when he wants to, but also social and gentle and caring, which really really well fits with both wasps and ants.

Ants were also my hyperfixation for a while lol, would you have guessed?

Thoughts?

[heather-rajendran]

Common red ant (Myrmica rubra) photo I took recently

[leedsomics]

Phylogenomics resolve the systematics and biogeography of the ant tribe Myrmicini and tribal relationships within the hyperdiverse ant subfamily Myrmicinae

Ants are a globally distributed and highly diverse group of eusocial animals, playing key ecological roles in most of the world's terrestrial ecosystems. Our understanding of the processes involved in the evolution this diverse family is contingent upon our knowledge of the phylogeny of the ants. While relationships among most subfamilies have come into resolution recently, several of the tribal relationships within the hyperdiverse subfamily Myrmicinae persistently conflict between or within studies, mirroring the controversial relationships of the Leptanillinae and Martialinae to the remaining ant subfamilies. Another persistent issue of debate in ant phylogenetics is the timing of major evolutionary events as inferred via divergence dating. Here, we test the topology of the myrmicine tribes using genome scale data, inspect gene tree-species tree concordance, and use posterior predictive checks and tests of compositional heterogeneity to infer sequence characteristics which potentially introduce systematic bias in myrmicine tribal topology. Furthermore, we test the placement of the fossil Manica andrannae by integrating phylogenomic and morphological data from nearly all species within the genus Manica, and a broad sampling of its sister genus Myrmica. Subsequently, we demonstrate the effect of fossil placement on overall divergence times in the Myrmicinae. We then re-evaluate the historical biogeography of the Myrmicini and Pogonomyrmecini considering newly generated genetic data and insights from our phylogenomic results. We find that our current understanding of tribal topology in the Myrmicinae is strongly supported, but this topology is highly sensitive to compositional heterogeneity and gene-tree species-tree conflict. Our fossil placement analyses strongly suggest that Manica andrannae is a stem Manica species, and that placement of this fossil in the crown group affects not only divergence dates within the tribe Myrmicini, but also has broad implications for divergence times throughout the formicoid clade. The results of our biogeographic reconstructions indicate a South American origin for the Pogonomyrmecini + Myrmicini, with the MRCA of Myrmica inhabiting the western Nearctic in the early Miocene prior to repeated dispersal across Beringia throughout the Miocene and Pliocene. The MRCA of Manica, on the other hand, was inferred to have a Holarctic range prior to vicariance during the Pliocene. Unexpectedly, we found strong support in the Pogonomyrmecini for three coordinated dispersal events from South to Central America during the early Miocene, which has been previously proposed as an early biotic interchange event prior to the more commonly accepted 3.5 Ma closure of the Isthmus of Panama. http://dlvr.it/TBYDR8

[entomoblog]

L'Azuré des mouillères

See on Scoop.it - EntomoScience

Ce papillon vit dans les milieux humides où pousse la Gentiane pneumonanthe. Sous leur brève forme d’adultes, les papillons s’observent pendant la période de floraison de cette gentiane, de mi-juin à fin septembre.

  Le site portail qui fait le tour des enjeux de l'environnement du département de l'Aveyron.

  "La chenille a une technique pour se nourrir tout à fait étonnante !

Les premières semaines de sa vie, tranquillement installée dans la fleur, elle mange les graines en formation de la Gentiane pneumonanthe puis se laisse tomber au sol où elle reste jusqu’à ce qu’une fourmi du genre Myrmica croise sa route. La chenille sécrète une substance imitant à la perfection les phéromones émises par les fourmis. Elles la considèrent donc comme l’une des leurs et l’emportent dans la fourmilière où les ouvrières la nourrissent comme s’il s’agissait d’une de leurs larves.

1 à 2 ans après, devenue papillon, l’Azuré des mouillères est beaucoup moins vorace et se contente de nectar de fleurs.

Son cycle de vie complexe (interaction azuré-fourmi-gentiane) fait de ce papillon une espèce très fragile.

La raréfaction de la Gentiane pneumonanthe ainsi que la disparition du nombre de fourmilières peuvent conduire à la disparition de l’azuré.

Ce papillon est donc protégé en France et fait partie de la liste des espèces menacées en Europe.

  La destruction et la fermeture des milieux humides sont les principales menaces qui pèsent sur l’Azuré des mouillères. En Aveyron, la plus importante station connue à ce jour est la tourbière  des Rauzes, sur le Lévézou, découverte en 2003 par la Maison Natale de Jean-Henri Fabre .

[adragonsoulants]

Update on the Myrmica queens this morning!

It looks like they have settled in. One sadly got lost in the sauce with the little dollop of honey I gave them. I should have waited until today to give them that, I pulled her out but I doubt she will recover.

One queen was resting in the tube while the other two appeared to be foraging. Gave them a chunk of a meal worm and they took to it right away!

Glad to see that, it's gonna be interesting raising these semi-claustrial queens.

[myrmica]

mer myrmica mering when i GET YOUUUUU sorry thats not actually a threat but u keep getting away with posting such good and visually & mentally stimulating art that something needs to be done. i dont know what. SOMETHING. maybe printing it out and eating it would help me here 🪲

HEHEHHEHEHEEEEHEHE. it's okay you can attack me if you want it would add some novelty to my life. may the best bug win. like this:

[abyssalzones]

guys did you know @myrmica is really smart and cool and good at writing. food for thought

[irrealisms]

hi! i just saw an old post of yours regarding a very indepth s4 youtube playlist and i'm intrigued! i know the basic stuff since i watched some streams around that time but i've been meaning to finally sit and watch s4 from beginning to end. would you be so kind as to drop a link? thank you :]

gonna assume you mean lifesteal (i also have a dsmp s4 playlist haha. i love Making Playlists. love to Curate) and i've actually got a few lifesteal playlists! well. sort of. i have like One in-depth playlist and then i've got Other People's Playlists

so the first thing i recommend which has every* lifesteal s4 edited video (no** VODs) is this playlist by @aroaceacacia -- it's how i got into lifesteal to begin with and i cannot recommend it highly enough. when you finish, keep an eye on zam's youtube channel, i believe he is the only one still editing his s4 & his finale should be coming out soon (a year late) lmaoooo * it is actually missing one video, but it's near the end + it DOES the behind the scenes for that video so it's easy to add in ** technically it's got one (1) 2-hour cut from a Subz VOD which is more VOD-like and less of a Highly Edited Short Video but p much all the rest of the 285 videos are more highly-edited official-yt-channel VideosTM, and even the Subz VOD is a cut from a 24-hour stream rather than the full thing.

unfortunately i don't know of any curated VOD playlists or overviews that cover the beginning of the season, by me or by anyone else--I might work on this at some point but rn unfortunately i haven't actually watched much early s4 :( although if you want, send me a follow-up ask and i'll do my best at a "major events" playlist, mixing edited videos (esp early-season where i havent Watched the VODs) with particularly important VODs for the stuff i Have seen? this would b p easy for me to make i just havent bc i didn't know if there would b interest. ive also been working on a timeline google doc covering all of s4 that includes both VODs and edited videos so, again, lmk if you're interested in that!

the second thing i recommend is this google doc by @myrmica , which starts covering things in detail in december 2022 and has super detailed notes for a BUNCH of VODs. absolutely invaluable resource. my primary recommendation if you want to watch vods from mid to late s4 is to just read this doc and add all the vods that look interesting to your personal playlist.

in terms of in-depth playlists i have, the main one i have is an eclipse federation playlist! it's got a couple vods or cut-down videos of pre-eclipse-fed for some context but mostly it covers eclipse federation's journeys from their formation to the end of the server. i skipped some streams that were just grinding or destroying end portals or similar but if you want those also you can go through the myrmica google doc. NOTE: this ONLY covers eclipse federation!!! and it covers them in pretty close detail!!!! things that get left out of this include stuff like most of the preparations for pangi & zam's god-off, 3ht's trap war, a lot of poopies shenanigans, the team awesome breakup, and of course everything that happened in the Several Months before eclipse federation formed.... basically anything that wasn't relevant to eclipse federation's journey. meanwhile there are multiple 4-hour VODs that are just zam thinking about his relationship problems and nothing rly happens. i honestly would not recommend this unless you are specifically looking for more detail on eclipse federation specifically lol. also i wasn't sure how to handle "there are 2-3 streams of the same events with different povs that have some nonoverlap and some overlap" so...sometimes i include both povs and sometimes i dont. it's a judgement call & i highly recommend going thru the myrmica google doc and making your own playlist--all the vods in this playlist are also on there, eclipse federation didn't Form until mid season 4 so all eclipse-federation-relevant streams are covered

also i've linked this before but ive got a more medium-length eclipse fed playlist that mixes VODs & edited videos so check that out if you want

and of course where would any of us be without the archivist VOD spreadsheet. not super useful if youre looking for Curated Playlists but i need to shout out archivists forever & ever

i've also got much less in-depth playlists of Just Edited Videos for stuff like s4 highlights, covering specific teams/storylines, etc but since you said you were interested in in-depth playlists im not going to link all those unless you ask, this post is already long enough as it is haha. im also maintaining a s5 edited videos playlist if youre interested in that, and ive got links to playlists of s1-3! so just ask if you want any of those

huge apologies if this was overwhelming! u activated my Autism Trap Card (i love playlist curation). & pls pls feel free to send another ask/message/whatever if you have any questions or are curious abt anything else or if you want anything else (i love playlist curation)

[ssseriema]

SERI I FOUND A COOL BUG IN SCHOOL!!! MAY I KNOW WHAT IT IS

HELLO!! that looks kind of like a giant mesquite bug thank you mer myrmica