#lemon ant

[jonnysinsectcatalogue]

Smaller Yellow Ant - Lasius claviger

Before covering the nuptial flights of this subterranean dwelling insect colony, I have some announcements for the blog. Firstly, the blog's text highlight color has finally been fixed. Text should now be highlighted in orange; give it a try. Secondly, I'm finally taking the step to enter YouTube, start a channel* and share these insects there. I hope you'll join me in this new venture. There will be an additional post covering this, but in the meantime you may refer to this blog link for additional information. Finally, yesterday was this blog’s 5 Year Anniversary! I feel quite sheepish in hindsight that the highlight color took 5 years to fix, but I'm not much of a programming whiz. My focus is, and always will be on the insects I find and to share the photography and videography I make with all of you, my dearest readers. Wow! 5 years. What a journey it has been. I'm incredibly grateful for all my followers (both old and new), the readers who frequent my blog, and the fellow bug-hunters on this website that have inspired me! I sincerely thank you! Furthermore, none of this would've happened or continued without the contributions, encouragement and support from my closest friends and my family. To them, I give all the thanks in the world and my deepest appreciation! And now, let's talk about Ants, nuptial flights and usurping queens! While tidying the yard due to the weather beginning to change , I was greeted by a flurry of winged alates emerging from the ground near a collection of buried backyard stones.

These images don't do the sheer volume of winged Ants justice, but there must've been hundreds emerging from their nest! It's a mad rush to spread out and secure a colony before the cold sets in (more on that to come). The backyard plays host to many Ant species, but this was the first time I've seen these before. False Honey Ants came to mind first since they don't mind the cold, but with no size disparity (and timing of emergence) it was clear that these alates were something else. The lemony-yellow color of the wingless worker Ants provided a clue, and I was directed immediately to the genus Lasius, more commonly known as Lemon Ants or Citronella Ants. They are named for more than just their colorful body; they can defend themselves and rouse a colony defense whose fragrance is similar to the scent of lemon. Though it may smell pleasant to us, I'm not sure if these Ants would taste very lemony. With the risks from bites, formic acid and soil sanitation conditions, I can't recommend you eat them; observing them should be enough. While I observed them, the scent was in action, and while the alates where docile and airborne, the workers are alert and I did get nipped a few times while poking near their colony's entrances. Compared to the worker Ants, the winged alates are much larger and appear to have more defined sclerotization, but they didn't seem inclined to bite me.

Naturally the winged Ants are stored up with fat reserves to prepare the young queens for initial building of a colony and the first wave of offspring that will tend the queen. Why so many alates though? Well, the answer is one even I didn't expect: this specie of Citronella Ant reportedly usurps (parasitizes technically speaking) the colonies of of other Citronella Ants that have already established nests slightly earlier in the year! Since they don't make their own colonies and competition is fierce, many individuals are born to grant the best opportunity possible to find a colony, infiltrate it, depose the queen inconspicuously and take her place! It is madness, but with winter on the way, it's every Ant queen for herself! However, it is reported that these Ants can forage during the colder months, similar to the False Honey Ant, assuming of course the specie I chose is accurate. I've ultimately settled on L. claviger as the time of emergence lines up (right on the edge of October) within the North American environment and from the sheer number of alates in flight. Distinguishing between species is very technical without an close-up observation of individuals, consideration of range and emergence flight, but identification down to the genus is easy if you smell lemons. If you wish to search for them, check under large stones or in the soil beneath rotting stumps. Since I know they're in the yard now, I'll see if I can share future posts with foraging Ants searching for colony provisions. Yellow coloration should make them easy to spot, but they may stay underground.

Pictures were taken on September 30, 2023 with a Google Pixel 4. Thank you all for an interesting 5 years, and for more years to come!

*Note: The channel was deliberately started so as to coincide with the anniversary of this blog. This makes tracking the anniversaries of both platforms much easier. Now onto the next media publishing step...

[party-lemon]

Choose your fighter: reunion tour MCR at a family dinner edition. I like to think I'm wine aunt or cool dad but, like most of you, I am goth cousin

[cringeculture69]

at this point I'm just gonna post random shit

Normal? What's that

IM ON THE GRIND ‼️🔥

[ender--slime]

MY LEMON DEMON SPIRAL OF ANTS LYRICSTUCK IS FINALLY FINISHED AND OUT!!!

a lot of blood sweat tears and SLEEP DEPRIVATION went into this baby!! the FULL 6 MINUTES!!! i’m super proud of it and it would mean the world to me if you could check it out !!!

https://youtu.be/w2osRJtC598

[sincerelynotserious]

God spiral of ants is such a Worm song and glowspider was a genius. Taylor IS one ant, the circle DOES rule her life, she can’t remember where she’s going.

[todayinhiphophistory]

Today in Hip Hop History:

Atmosphere released their fifth studio album When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold April 22, 2008

[ifuckinglovelemondemon-srs]

Headphones aren't enough, i need every song in this album up my ass

[avatar-of-the-blank]

Hello Michael. There are several hundred worms in your corridors. Treat the kindly…

I WOULD DO NOTHING LESS FOR THEM! COULD YOU SEND SOME ANTS THOUGH? THE ORCHESTRAL ARRANGEMENT IVE BEEN TEACHING THEM COULD USE SOME CHOREOGRAPHY.

[fartfart500]

you cant remember knowing ☝️

[murderofsomeone]

uh uuhhhhh uhhhh what do you think is the most underrated lemon demon song?

forever baffled that The Machine isn't as popular as other view-monster songs.

[two-left-hands]

this wil flop since is not rw but thats ok

[void-thevoid]

[party-lemon]

I've been wanting to make this post for a while and, in light of the absolute epic outfits at their first WWWY show, I thought this would be the perfect time:

My Chemical Romance is not the same.

When people think of MCR, they think of eyeliner and blood and vampires and red and black and doom and gloom. And, don't get me wrong, a number of Gerard's outfits show that we still get some of that:

But, nowadays, we also get:

And I'm not just talking about dresses. I'm not just talking about Gerard finally feeling comfortable to wear whatever he wants, because that could be from numerous other factors.

No, I'm also talking about:

They're having fun.

This band had been nonstop since 2003. They went from Bullets to Revenge to Black Parade to Danger Days without much of a break because they were great and they were expected to do something because that's what great bands do; they keep creating things, they churn stuff out for their fans and their industry, they bleed themselves dry for other people because that's their job.

My Chemical Romance thought they were done after The Black Parade. And then they kept going, only because they were desperately trying to rewrite themselves. To rid themselves of those crushing expectations to do something else great. But, no matter what they did, MCR couldn't escape them.

We don't really know the full story behind why they ended things. MCR is notorious for being rather cryptic. But I get the feeling that those expectations were too much. No matter how much they just tried to be themselves, to create things for themselves, to have fun, they couldn't. And constantly doing things for other people starts weighing very heavily. Expectations and threats are only separated by a fine line. And they were tired.

Did they always expect to return...who knows? Certainly not us. Like I said, MCR has always been cryptic. But I do know that they didn't come back the same as before.

My Chemical Romance came back and gave a big "fuck you" to expectations. I mean, The Foundations of Decay gives it all away. They've been playing a vast array of songs, some of which we've barely heard or they haven't played in years. Sister to Sleep, Fake Your Death, Mastas of Ravenkroft, Heaven Help Us, Bury Me in Black, Desert Song, Demolition Lovers. There's clips of Frank, Ray, and Mikey all playing in front of their kids. Frank and Gerard's piss and vinegar shirts, Ray wearing a Mikey Fuckin Way t-shirt, everyone hugging and laughing with each other, Frank literally saying he's having so much fun that he wants to keep playing, Gerard coming out in the most insane outfits, all of them just constantly smiling like a bunch of wonderstruck children.

So, no. MCR isn't the same. But they're having fun. And they're ridding themselves of what My Chemical Romance once was. There's bits and pieces still left that they'll still use but, for the most part, they're tearing down what once was and building something new. For all they knew, this could have all gone down in flames but they don't care because they're who they want to be. And they're giving the middle finger to expectations and to anyone who dares to say that MCR isn't good enough or was better before.

Nostalgia is no good when it blinds you to the better things in the present.

[bog-frog]

it's kinda funny that the first lemon demon song I heard was someone's repost on here of "redesing your logo" so I went into spirit phone expecting his lyrics to be all vaguely surreal scathing social critique, but on average what I got was "wouldn't it be fucked up if..."

[virtual-boy]

{📞}{📞}{📞} {🕹️}{🕹️}{🕹️} {🛸}{🛸}{🛸}

"This is gonna change our world..."

["This is gonna change our world..."]

spirit phone by lemon demon stimboard with red gifs representing songs from the album!

[requested by anon, ty!!!]

[yumenosakiacademy]

will wood's "tomcat disposables" 🤝 lemon demon's "spiral of ants" emotional song abt a naive/unknowing animal's death/dying moments from the perspective of the animal tht frames things in a special way n tht makes u cry think, albeit w v different energies.