Leafcutter Ant

You shouldered the leaf piece
seven times your size, marched
charted distances to your nest,
dropped it for inspection, already divorced
from the outcome- kept
or rejected. Another member marshals
leaf balance, the perfect number
of each to best grow fungus food.
You trudge forth to search
the next leaf fragment
offered to fungal cultivars.

Written in awe of leafcutter ants I saw in Trinidad's Northern Range Rain Forest who carry leaf parts to their nest to grow the fungus (true farmers) that feeds the colony. One I tracked carried an enormous piece he successfully deposited. Another ant inspects each leaf and accepts or rejects the piece based on the balanced needs of the fungus. Imagine carrying such a burden so far only to have it discarded?

The first photo shows a leaf cutter road that ran for 1/2 a mile. The second is the nest entrance. This nest was a mound 12-14 feet across. The third photo shows the ant I tracked under that long leaf piece.

It's all offered to the G-Man for Friday Flash 55.

Tundra

The very name chosen for me speaks
to my strength, tundra. Sounds
strong, like lichen, Don't
tell of my fragility,
they'll banish me you know.
Each step on my surface means

habitat lost, mosses crushed. When so
little lives, each is essential, precious. Not
in some darling sense but bedrock
real, life based now on what others
do unto me, outside
my control, while winds howl.


This is based on a prompt form Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads on Transforming Fridays Take Two- Tundra with the challenge to speak in the voice of the flora or fauna of the tundra, or as the tundra herself. (Photo from Hannes Grobe at Wikimedia Commons.)

Convergent Evolution

I thought I was looking at a tiny hummingbird with his long proboscis in our red geranium. (Look where yellow and orange meet about a third of the way down the photo.) I've seen hummingbirds as small as this in Trinidad's Rain Forest. The smallest of the hummingbirds, the Bee Hummingbird, lives there and measures just 5cm. But my neighbor's daughter told me that Italy has no hummingbirds and that instead it was a hummingbird hawk-moth. Who knew there was such a thing?

(image from Wikipedia)

Wikipedia said that the Hummingbird Hawk-moths that are loving my plants are a good example of convergent evolution. Right on my balcony! Ever a sucker for new facts, I skipped to the info about convergent evolution and found that it "describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages." They cited the example of an owl and a cat which are "distantly related predators that share keen, night-time binocular vision and targetable ears to help their night time hunting."

(both images from Wikipedia)

But back to the Hummingbird Hawk-moths and the hummingbirds. My tiny visitor  is distinguished among moths for his rapid, sustained flying ability. In fact he is one of the fastest flying insects clocking in at 50km/h or 30m/h. He and his species hover in midair while they feed on nectar from flowers. Like hummingbirds, they are specialized nectarivores. Imagine! 

Anyway, their hovering capability has evolved only three times in nectar feeders: in hummingbirds, certain bats and hawk moths (family: sphingidae). The hummingbird hawk-moth's hovering is similar to, but distinct from, that of hummingbirds. Both have long and mostly straight bills for their specialized nectar feeding and drink it with their trough-like tongues.

It seems the plants that are pollinated by hummingbirds or hummingbird hawk-moths produce flowers in shades of red, orange and bright pink. My geranium is an almost neon orangey-red so that's evidently why I'm seeing so many of these hawk-moths. It's okay with me, nature is an awesome teacher!

Doing What's Right

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise." - Aldo Leopold


A simple criteria, not easy but simple. 


Some recent photos that show simple ways to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community:

And two new additions of cousin love and cousin love writ large because isn't love what's it's all about?!

What's important to you these days?