Clearing it out

[urbpan]

Here's a very random set of photos that are in my folder preventing me from doing anything else until I post them. This first one is an ant doing something weird, I think tending a scale insect to get honeydew, but I've never really seen a scale insect and don't know if that's what this is.




Here's a couple shots of the traditional July third fireworks. The never really stop in our neighborhood: unless there's snow on the ground it's fireworks season. These were big 'uns, real close in a real dense residential neighborhood.


Owning terrified dogs has taken a lot of the fun out of fireworks for me.


Did somebody say dogs? This was the last time we took Basil (The Pups) swimming before he got neutered and then adopted.


Here's a European paper wasp nest I killed with insecticide. Then I was curious and opened up one of the chambers--a worker was only minutes or hours away from eclosing.


This unidentified jumping spider was hiding in my towel and fell to the floor when I used it to dry myself. The low light conditions made the picture look sickly until I took all the color out.

Comments

[frith]

Top image: probably whooly aphids. Was that on alder?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I'm embarrassed to say that I don't remember what plant they were on. Alder makes a lot of sense--it was a small shrub on the bank of a pond.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

And after a little trip forward and back through Bugguide pages on woolly aphids, scale insects, and mealybugs, I'm back to complete agreement: woolly alder aphids.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

awwww swimmingpupspups

[teage o'connor (from livejournal.com)]

Those definitely look like a younger woolly alder aphid colony to me. Not sure what kind of ant that is, but we get outbreaks of them up here in Burlington, VT - pretty harmless to the alders, just sucking out some of the sap. And they're almost always attended by ants that eat up the sugary sweet "honey dew" excrement of the aphids (looks like tiny clear droplets). Watching the shepherds tend the flock is a fun way to spend an afternoon.

Also thanks for the blog, I've found answers to many a question here and have been checking irregularly for a couple of years.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much!