Chebucto Regional Softball Club

Imagine a glamours ant sleeping with a coca-cola cap as a pillow

"the diapause that refreshes"

If torpor isn't defined by body temperature but it's about "metabolic rate" then why is the diapause of the ants (other insects also participate) not considered torpor?

Further if a long torpor is a hibernation why correct people who say "the ants are hibernating"

"the ants are in diapause" is more correct. But I thought this was because only endotherms could hibernate.

I am confusion.

@herissonrose

for a moment I thought this was a tiny cat resting on a human hand... or perhaps ... a very huge human hand...

@goaty

I think these nests show how they are related to other wasps. We just get to see the things that winged wasps make more often.

@goaty

I've been in pottery classes and watched (human) people struggle to hand build a cup this nice and smooth and symmetrical.

And they weren't even working on a cup the size of a small house.

@goaty

Ants haven't figured out pottery that we know of yet. But they do sculpt clay:

Indian Harvester ants, Pheidole sykesii create levies around their nest entrance so that when it rains the flood waters do not enter, but rather flow around it while they stay dry underground.

They build in response to the water so you can tell which direction the water comes form during the rains based on the height of the walls.

I could write a whole book on "ants in pottery" ...

I found another remarkable ant vase. This one has a charming surprise inside.

It's a harvester ant!

Is it silly to have an ant making bread? I assure you it is not. Harvester ants crush the seeds they find and make them into a paste known as "ant bread" I suppose they don't bake it though...

Vase by Patricia Jones Jemez of Pueblo NM. She made many ant themed vases.

etsy.com

(www.etsy.com)

@queenofnewyork @NatureMC @EricLawton

Someone needed to study "The First Law of Antkeeping" (and also the second law)

RE: https://mastodon.online/@NatureMC/115911373525736414

can someone please help us remember this film?

I know THEM has a myrmecologist (and his hot daughter who is also a myrmecologist)

And there is a creepy one in Phase IV...

it's not one of these I hope. I want a new one.

UPDATE: It's been found. "Angels And Insects" see down thread.

@EricLawton

"Now I'm wondering how many fiction books there are, featuring ants."

Not enough. But, we work daily and with great dedication to correct this issue.

@ClimateJenny

I think there is a similar dynamic with arts and crafts but some of them did a better job resisting it.

Their focus on labor is interesting. Who made this? How? Good questions.

I really wish that people would stop trying to turn #solarpunk into another escapist luxury style like #artnouveau

Art Nouveau loves nature even as it destroys it. Art Nouveau sometimes feels like a mockery of nature to me--

We love nature so much we have cut down all of the mahogany trees and carved them into an extraordinary excessively pretty banister shaped like no real plant you have ever seen. A staircase frozen in time forever in a dead space filled with insufferable people.

@independentpen

I know this won't make much sense but... I think I'm ALSO her "legal advocate" and the points of contention between us, as perfectly aligned parties, are all over how to best serve the desires of our client ... the questions of what is reasonable do not enter this court.

@Twotired

Yes. She needs to reduce her protein intake. But she also had a thyroid problem that made her lose a lot of weight a year ago (her pills have fixed this) I'm wary of her eating any less since she's doing so well.

She's 18 as well and very happy playful and healthy. So I think about her quality of life a lot.

Eating food is one of her favorite things next to being petted and complimented.

(She loves it when you talk to her and tell her how lovely she is.)

@notoriousiptg

* If the ant were one of the extinct species such as the Hell ants, the hadiomyrmex
* if she always spoke of humans in the past tense.

@AnnaAnthro

I almost thought this was a little heavy handed: using power to kill, no matter how comprehensive and compelling the reasoning has expansive consequences as it violates a core value.

Nonetheless both ants and people rationalize such death all of the time. And like the narrator we sense the consequences of our actions only dimly.

But I could be projecting my own values on to this work. That is possible too.

@AnnaAnthro

Yes the book describes a world where males are mostly irrelevant. That's how ants really operate. But it's not a world free from intrigue, deceit, dominance and war.

Our vegetarian, pacifist, scientist narrator thinks nothing of giving a pheromone to one of her most loyal subjects that causes her to die basically "for national security reasons" which she rationalizes convincingly.

The next night this dangerous pheromone kills thousands of ants, their bodies forming mountains.

@AnnaAnthro

Thank you for finding this essay. It's not the only one that suggests that the ants in the book are a "utopian society" and uses that lens to examine the work.

But, it's the ants themselves who claim they are superior and civilized, the joke is that they aren't no one is.

For example our narrator, a leaf-cutter ant, proud pacifist and vegetarian laments that other ants always myopically think they are the pinnacles of creation. Not recognizing she herself is the same.

My husband and I are not "two people who have a pet cat." No.

She is not his pet, he is, I think her legal advocate.

"My client is registering a formal complaint about the lateness of breakfast."

"My client may start formal proceedings against you if this healthy low protein diet program continues."

"I do not know the current location of my client, but I would point out that for this hearing such information is not within the rights of the court."

Does she pay him? How?