(Green Ajah Nature Week) Favorite Insects and Fun Facts

[LilyElizabeth]

(Shudders at the thought of bed bugs.) Please don't mentioned those. If you have never had to endure the plague they are, you are blessed.

 

 

I can't tell you how much I've spent on getting rid of them. They are the worst plague yet. 

[Cross]

rolly pollies!

[WildTaltos]

I guess one interesting thing is a theory of how insects evolved wings. There were two main competing ones, though it seems for the most part nowadays, most are in one camp. The one that is favoured nowadays is that they just evolved out of small protrusions on the thorax that, because they were useful with gliding, they just kept getting selected for, larger and larger, more complex, until you eventually get full-fledged wings. The other theory is that they were modified out of gills, since, insects sharing a common ancestor with crustaceans, they were originally aquatic, and supposedly the wing veins correspond to veins you can find in crustacean gills. 

Something else interesting is that sometimes, ants or bee species can revert to being asocial (i.e. go from living in a colony to living on their own). Not too hard for them to do, when you think about there is only one reproducing female out of thousands in a colony - the rest just exist to protect and feed that one queen and more sterile "clones" - while the males are usually solitary anyways, so the queen just basically would need to abandon the colony and go off on their own, for whatever reason, for that to happen. Velvet ants are an example of a species of solitary ants (though I am not sure if they are one of those that ever had colonies) - some people will say they aren't actually ants, they're wasps, but that's kind of stupid because of all ants and bees are technically "wasps."

 

I had bed bugs not that long ago - I was probably lucky insofar as my place is small and I don't have much possessions so could have been easy to get rid of compared to others. I also did "overkill" - as soon as I was sure it was bed bugs, first thing I did was buy diatomaceous earth and throw that in all the crevices and around my bed. When that wasn't working instantaneously, I bought something with the name "Phantom" in it and sprayed that in the crevices too, and in order to stop them biting me in the meantime, I bought a mosquito tent (Sansbug) and slept in that, and that seemed to mostly work, they couldn't get in. Taped up the zipper and any seams when I got inside each time though to be safe. It was unnerving waking up and finding them all over the outside of the tent though, so after first couple weeks, I bought a hammock and stand, and I placed all the points it touched the ground with in paper bowls of a thick layer of diatomaceous earth. I did the same to the legs of all my chairs, and far as I can tell, they couldn't or didn't want to cross and climb up, so I was safe in that. I also bought a handheld steamer and I started steamed every crevice, and I had washed all my clothes and placed them in a couple layers of plastic waste bags. I was bite free within a couple weeks of starting all of that, and I stopped seeing much of any of them within a few months. Last one I saw was sixth months later, and after that nothing since, so seems they are gone.

[WildTaltos]

Something else interesting - some species of blind ants, like army ants, will form large spirals/circles, and walk around and around until they die in exhaustion. It's called an "ant mill," and it happens if the ants somehow loose the trail of pheromones that guide them to wherever they are going, like back to the nest. Since they can't see, they will just smell the ant closest to them and start following it, and that ant follows the one in front of it, and so on, until they are just following each other in circles, and they do that until they starve to death or die of thirst. I had a friend who said, morbidly, that statement pretty much describes the state of modern society perfectly lol.

[Ryrin]

I didn't know that some ants were blind.

 

What happens to the other bees if the Queen leaves?

[JamesBrown]

That's an interesting fact, WildTaltos.

 

Reminds me of the physicist Richard Feynman who humanely got rid of ants in his larder by ferrying them around on pieces of paper so as to lay down new pheromone trails. This way, he got the ants to follow a different route out of his house, and everybody won.

 

You can read about it here.

[Dar'Jen Ab Owain]

Rolly pollies are cool. I try to avoid hurting those.

 

I did not know about the ants walking in that spiral pattern. I find that sad. Is there a way to get them back on path?

[Ryrin]

I loved those when I was a kid.

[Dar'Jen Ab Owain]

 

 

So rollie pollies or pillbugs are not insects. Interesting fact. They are actually crustaceans, related to shrimp and crayfish. They breathe through gills and need humidity or moisture to survive. Interesting. A pillbug can live up to three years.

[Cross]

hahaa no way really? NEVER would have guessed that. makes sense though used to always find them in the moss in my aunts yard

[Shad_]

Insects creep me the hell out. Might be my only irrational fear in life. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

 

But for some reason ladybugs don't count. Maybe it's because their wings give the appearance of a shell so I never imagine them squishing all over me. Maybe it's because they move really slowly compared to most bugs. I dunno.

 

On that note, I'm also completely chill with spiders, but I suppose they aren't insects.

[Cross]

dude you would have loved our fifth grade camp out here. had a hike to ladybug canyon. and no lie, not exaggerating but there were THOUSANDS of them. there were these huge leafy plants and the ladybugs just piled on them tons of them

[Ryrin]

dude you would have loved our fifth grade camp out here. had a hike to ladybug canyon. and no lie, not exaggerating but there were THOUSANDS of them. there were these huge leafy plants and the ladybugs just piled on them tons of them

 

The Ladybug Trail is an easy to moderate trail in Sequoia National Park that follows the South Fork of the Kaweah River at about 4,000 feet. The trail runs to Ladybug Camp and then Whiskeylog Camp. The Ladybug Trail in Sequoia National Park follows the South Fork of the Kaweah River at about 4,000 feet elevation.

 

 

My husband took this one.

 

 

 

                            

Edited September 2, 2017 by Ryrin

[Dar'Jen Ab Owain]

The Ladybug Trail looks pretty incredible. Maybe someday I'll get to home it.

[Ryrin]

:)

 

Thank you, Dar'Jen and everyone for participating in the Green Ajah's Nature Week.