Omg! Omg! Omg! Fire Ants! Omfg!

[Winston]

I think it's a shame you people are so blood thirsty and hostile towards the poor ants. Why not live alongside eachother peacefully, with nobody getting hurt?

OK, seriously, if they're outside the house and not in it, you should leave them alone.

[Urban Ranger]

Nothing wrong with ants.

Cockroaches, on the other hand, will be smashed on sight.

[Gatekeeper]

This thread is hilarious.

When I was younger, I'd go out and attack the ant hills that were scattered across our acreage. I'd wage war on the black ants, the black-and-red ants, the red ants and the orange ants. I'd kill a portion of the nest and carry off as many surviving workers, queens, soldiers and drones as possible to start a colony in an old fish aquarium.

I especially enjoyed using a hammer on the acid-spitting soldier ants (BTW, all ants are *female* except for the drones, which are lazy males whose only duty is to impregnate queens-to-be). Once their ranks were cleared, the nest would fall victim to a barrage of firecrackers, hot water and poison. I tell ya, I was like a Roman general in those affairs — kill the colony, salt the land and carry off the survivors to labor away in my little fish aquarium. Ah, the POWER! It was an ELIXIR!

*cough* Ahem. Yes, well, as I was saying: I collected ants when I was a young lad on the farm.

Gatekeeper

[Sikander]

Originally posted by SpencerH
If you're in Albuqueque check out the scorpions at night with a blacklight. Send some pics. Fascinating stuff! No one knows why they're phosphorescent under UV light.

One assumes that;

A: They can see into the UV spectrum a bit and those markings are used for them to identify one another.

B: That some of their prey can see into the UV spectrum a bit and their markings are used for camouflage.

or both.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Winston
I think it's a shame you people are so blood thirsty and hostile towards the poor ants. Why not live alongside eachother peacefully, with nobody getting hurt?

OK, seriously, if they're outside the house and not in it, you should leave them alone.

Spoken like someone who's never dealt with fireants.

BTW, I think Killer bees have made it to Albuquerque.

[SpencerH]

Originally posted by Sikander


One assumes that;

A: They can see into the UV spectrum a bit and those markings are used for them to identify one another.

B: That some of their prey can see into the UV spectrum a bit and their markings are used for camouflage.

or both.

Many/most insects can see UV. Flowers look totally different to a bee for example.

Its not 'markings' per ce. Scorpions glow brightly under UV light. Kinda like the luminescent halloween toys that glow after being in sunlight. Thats how you catch em. You just walk around with a UV light and look for the greenish/white light.

AFAIK the current theories are that it attracts prey or that it attracts other scorpions for mating.

Space05us, get to work on that!

[Tuberski]

Originally posted by Space05us
And heres the spider that was on my moms cieling.

Smash the *****!

Hard to tell, but it could be a brown recluse.

This is what can happen:



ACK!

[Adagio]

Back when I was a kid I used to play ball with the ants, so I threw a ball at them and they threw back... for some reason they only wanted to play once before they gave up

For the last 5-10 years I've never liked to kill any insects at all. I've only killed a few spiders on purpose for the past 5 years. One fell down on my face (but quickly fell off again) so I kinda got mad at it. The other one I tried to transport to the garden, but my niece smashes it before I got away from her, so I decided to kill it out of mercy :

[Spiffor]

You killed your niece out of mercy? awwww

[Space05us]

BTW, I think Killer bees have made it to Albuquerque.

Which is why, even though I hate them, Im going to leave the wasps alone.

Hard to tell, but it could be a brown recluse.

I dont think it is.

[Space05us]

I had a tick on the back of my neck this morning.

[ajbera]

Brown recluses have that telltale fiddle mark on their cephalothorax, as indicated in the photo above. Nice pic of the bites, Tuberski. Just what I need during lunch.

[Stuie]

What the hell? When did Space escape from Barrow? I haven't been checking in often enough...

[MrFun]

Ant Wars: Revenge of the Red Ants

[Space05us]

What the hell? When did Space escape from Barrow?

Four days ago now. I actually left on Saturday but my wonderful plane hopping ride was over on Sunday morning. As indicated by my avatar, and as you may already know, Im in New Mexico.