if you've not seen this, you've never seen anything like this

 
For a color-freak biologist, this is heaven; so amazing.

Ants with transparent abdomens drinking BRIGHTLY colored sugar water.

wow.

And the last shot makes me want to kiss that ant. Well, almost; she's a little hairy. =)

So sweet.

xobb

Wednesday quiz, Britain's royal wedding, & royal jelly secret revealed!

  

They have now discovered what is the key component

of royal jelly, which turns bee larvae into queens.

photo by Wausberg

Aside from countless hours at a finishing school, that is.

Its discoverer, Masaki Kamakura, dubbed the protein royalactin.

photo by the folks at blueberry forest toys

Royalactin sounds like what I did as a child when I'd dress up like a princess and parade around the house with my super cool princess hat. Which, unlike the lovely ones above, was made out of 8 1/2 x 11 inch lined paper, staples, and determination.

Apparently, I was to going to look like a princess and wear that amazing hat, no matter what.

=)

ANYhow, it's 1) exciting that they figured this out (the ingredient that makes baby bees queens), 2) kinda surprising to me they'd not figured this out yet. Is it just me? Did folks just not look into it, or was it a really tough problem?

Anyone know?

photo info here (it's kinda complicated)

Anyhow, I thought what with all the Royal Wedding fervor, this was the week to post this. And, well, I just learned it this a.m. =)

So, now for the RANDOM QUIZ!

We all know that royal jelly makes the queen, a different caste than the worker bees, in this eusocial species.

FYI, eusocial, per E.O. Wilson in Sociobiology (1975) via this site, has three defining characteristics: 

"(1) individuals of the same species cooperate in caring for the young; (2) there is a reproductive division of labor, with more or less sterile individuals working on behalf of fecund nestmates; (3) and there is an overlap of at least two generations in life stages capable of contributing to colony labor, such that offspring assist parents during some period of their life."

Ants bb bonded with in Guatemala

Ants are a classic example of a eusocial species, as are bees.

WITHOUT LOOKING IT UP (including eusocial), can you name a mammalian species that is eusocial?

=)

Good luck!

bb

P.S. As usual, wild guesses are MOST welcome, and the prize is PRIDE in your smartiness, inventiveness, humor, bravery for posting a comment, and the knowledge that you've greatly amused the bb.

P.P.S. the answer will include a picture of this charming creature and a story about how a t-shirt choice confirmed my suspicions about a person...

What's That Bug? E.O. Wilson turns everyone into a kid again

E.O. Wilson brakes for bugs.*

So, during the leg of the tour that headed toward Yosemite Falls,

the train of folks halted completely for:

 A spider.

errrt! (brakes squeaking)

What's that bug?

Out came the field guide.

(afraid I missed the answer...)

And, while the book was out,

they looked up a beetle they'd seen earlier.

Next, en route to Yosemite Falls, they found ants on a cedar tree.

errrrt! Train stops again.

What's that bug?

Next, after the Yosemite Falls stop, there's a lunch break.

Someone noticed a bug on a woman's pant leg.

Down goes the sandwich, up goes the pant leg.

What's that bug?

(notice all the delighted smiles around him)

Gently holding the creature, chatting, folks getting a peek....

Apparently, it was a recently emerged adult stonefly.

Then, visit winding down,

we're sitting in an NPS meeting room at headquarters.

And, of course...

What's that bug?

An ant.

I think it was a house ant.

Peering at the ant, now crawling on the table.

So delightful.

Curiosity about the world around him,

delight in nature,

sharing with other people,

all contribute to E.O.-Wilson-as-Pied-Piper,

leading the adults around,

who in very short order

turn into little kids,

looking at the bugs on the ground.

Epitomizing a budding naturalist.

Kind of like when E.O. Wilson was a kid,

searching through the fields,

dropping to his knees,

looking at the bugs on the ground,

and wondering

What's that bug?

Who knows what can become of such small moments.

=)

bb

*fyi using the term "bug" super loosely. Not referring to actual bugs, members of the order hemiptera. Can I just say that looking that up, to get the link and confirm that hemiptera is the name for bugs, it MADE my DAY that I remembered that right? =) Doesn't take much.

today's harvest: blinded by buttercup

 
Another unusual harvest day. Or, maybe it's just a fall thing. Cut pretty much all of the winter squash I could readily see. At least until I couldn't see.

buttercup squash, tomatoes, and corn

Once again, gardening around 10:30 a.m., when apparently my blood sugar has crashed (thought I felt fine...), so blinking, grabbing for old corn and squash I said out loud: "Why can't I see?" I'd blink again and my vision re: what I was staring directly at would return, but then it'd happen again. yikes.

So steered myself and the umpteen squashes swaddled in my sweatshirt back to the house for a meal. For me, not the squashes.

Woke up later, and the stems had been oozing clear liquid that the ants liked onto the floor. Picked myself up from my brunch-induced coma and cleaned up the mess, unceremoniously swiping ants.

Take Home Lesson
Freshly picked winter squash initial storage position? Stem-side up, if you don't want cute little sugary pools. =)

Learning all the time with this gardening thing.

Picture is from here, Wikipedia.

Thinkin' that's partly why Thomas Jefferson (brainiac) and George Washington (brainiac who had his own still!) were so into it.

You can seriously geek out; and it's never the same. Ever.

And it's fun.

And yummy.

And pretty.

And the ants love it!

xobiobabbler

unbelievably cool ant stuff

            
wow. For a look at a-MA-zing photos of ant faces and really interesting info about a few of the species, check out the video at:

http://nobonesaboutit.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/face-to-face-with-ants-at-the-smithsonian/

Then when you get down to comments, there's a video of the gliding ants getting dropped from the tree canopy and circling back to the trunk.

Seriously.

I really don't understand how people can NOT be fascinated by biology.

Thanks so much to the Bug Whisperer for these links!!

biobabbler