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There use to be a rollie pollie graveyard outside my house.
We have a lot of rollie pollies but at a certain area in the garden, there use to always be a bunch of rollie pollies lying dead and brittle on that one patch of dirt- Is this because Rollie Pollies come here to die or...is it something more sinister?
Mayhaps this be the work of a carnivorous insect with a penchant for rollie pollie flesh...?
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Oooo a garden mystery! What other observations have you made? What is the condition of the bodies? What is in/on the soil? What is the temperature, moisture level, etc? Is it different from other areas?
Celia, you know I am jealous of you. I really wanted to go.
Posts: 3141 | Registered: Apr 2000
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I have a farm down in Ohio, Defiance County. One day when I was little I was running around and between the outhouse and the laundry house there was this HUGE moth!!
It was about the size of a cat.
I had seen pictures of one before in show and tell (I told you I was little) by another student and recognized it. It had great big furry legs and beautiful wings and long feather like antenna.
I immediatly got a box to capture it. It didn't fly or move at all until I got it in the box. I made my parents drive out to the next town so we could get a cage. Store closed, we came back only to find the moth gone from the box.
(I personally think that one of my family let it escape to freedom. I didn't want to keep it long...just long enought to study!)
So Jenn... What WAS that thing?
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oooooo! Was it bright green? Was it brown with intricate patterns? I love those kind of moths. Jenny, did you get the book yet? I hope you like it...
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I've never seen one quite as big as what you're talking about, but otherwise it would seem to match your description.
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I just got done with Nausicaa, and I'm utterly enchanted! I recognize her as one of my direct descendants, I think. I need to get myself a copy so I can have my daughter read it when she is old enough for comics.
As to the moth question, I need more detail. What part of the country was it found in? Coloration? Eyespots? Any particular behaviors or odors? What was it found on?
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Wow! Talk about your invasive species! Let this be a warning to all of you who would transport creatures out of their natural environments to be your pets.
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Both my roomates are terrified of spiders and insist on killig every one they see, even outside. (My border is my bedroom) They're convinced that our barn is crawling with brown recluses. I don't think so, but since I don't know exactly what one looks like, I don't know. Are Brown Recluses common in Michigan?
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Erik, I think the oldtimers are right. When i lived in Napa, I remember the eucalyptus trees filled with chirpers, and they were not cricket-like.
I also find desert crickets to have a nasty sound, more like a scrape. Give me a black Mew England cricket any day.
Also, is The Yellow Brick Road restaurant still there?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Okay, bug person. Any hint on what kind of bug this would be? And best way to deal with it? We have had an infestation of these TEEENY tiny littl black bugs. Looks like beetle and no flight but really small (at first, worried it was mouse droppings...until the moved). Anyway, the have taken up shop in our dry good cabinet. Someone told us to clear out all non-sealed packages, from open pancake mix boxes to the cardboard boxes of pasta (which aren't very sealed). Did that, cleared out and scrubbed down the cabinet and I think they are gone, though one or two have popped up (not as many as before). This is only place we found them, too. Since then, I am keeping new stuff in the fridge for now (odd, but it works) or getting plastic, sealed tubs to store unused pasta, flour, etc. in.
Someone said it may have come with a recent purchase of dogfood (though it is stored far away from this stuff). Any idea? or is this for garden variety bugs, only?
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fil, Dog food is a breeding ground for all kinds of meal worms and weevils.(I think what you have is a weevil. Not sure, though)
I have see those, though.
For the mealworms, which turn into small tan moths, you can get a hormone trap. Not sure about the little round guys, though. Also check your drawers, and the corners of cabinets, where little cracker pieces might get trapped.
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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fil - You can also help prevent weevil infestations by freezing (just overnight is fine but I also tend to just leave my extra flour in the freezer and it is just fine) your flour, cake mix, brownie mix, pancake mix, etc. The cold kills off any eggs that may be present before they hatch and ick up your life.
Posts: 5879 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Thanks for the advice! I like the freezing idea. Weevils or meal works. I go with the lesser of two weevils. Bwahahahahaha... (okay, lame). We had mealworms a decade back in a flour product. That was nasty, but they didn't spread and only seemed to be in one product...they were the harder to see variety...yet, I think my wife might have mentioned little flying things (not fruit flies that we sometiems get from open air market). Hmmm...so far so good since clean out, though...freezing new stuff, too. Except the dog food...too big.
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Jenny is NOT going to like what i have to say. Close your eyes, Jenny...
Today I bought a giant bag of ant killer and poured it all over a giant carpenter ant's nest in the yard. Then I poured some around the base of a tree they were climbing to get access to the house.
I did not even feel bad about this, and that makes me feel bad.
Last time I looked, the ants were still crawling over the ant killing field as if it were regular old dirt.
Is all my guilt about not having guilt for naught?
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Nah, don't feel guilty. Think of it as sending a very strong chemical message that they are NOT welcome to climb your tree and get into your house. I had to put ant poison out this year, too. We're trying to sell our house, and whem my mom cleaned she got rid of all my helpful spiders. So, no healthy buggy ecosystem. Sigh.
There are times and places for dealing death. Just as long as you don't start killing ants whenever you see them or irrationally fear them or not care if wild ants not harming anybody get toasted. These particular ants were threatening you, so if other messages were not getting through, the killing chemicals are the only option (unless you are spiritually better than I and are willing to accept whatever damage the ants deal out as a spiritual lesson in compassion). Carpenter ants are very common and their populations will not suffer too much from the destruction of one anthill.
But do pay attention to other populations. It might be interesting to see if any other creatures are affected by your choice of weaponry.
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Thanks. I really do feel bad about the whole situation.
Funny. We are having a sewer put in in our neighborhood. We have had many septic problems, because we have a very high water table.
This year, no problems at all. We flush, shower, and wash, and there is not even the hint of a backup. I wonder if the sewer project sucked out the groundwater? And if a drier soil attracts ants?
(my son was not pleased with my decision.) It hurt to have to tell him I was destroying the ants. And don't think I didn't think of the Hive Queen! But I did not want the hive Queen chewing up my back porch. It is in enough trouble, because of gravity and age, as it is.
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I don't have any questions, but reading this thread made me remember I meant to look stuff up about an ant-infestation in 'the family villa' a couple of months back.
It happened gradually, appearing to be no more than ordinary foraging ants. Non-aggressive, didn't bite even when they encountered us, what I'd call nice ants. (No one else called them that, though.) Their presence increased, though, and more and more were spotted until you could pass a day and see, no exaggeration, several hundred without looking for them. Which meant there were many thousands of them wandering about at a minimum.
But they still weren't aggressive, still didn't bite. As time passed, there were so many that daily we'd turn up a few score in the little puddle of water collecting in the shower. Apparently they were wandering around (what appealed to them in the shower, I don't know). Finally the non-ecologically minded in the family decided enough was enough, and we waited for the bug-man to come.
He inspected, and learned that these were 'white-footed ants'. They feed on just about anything, he said (and I noticed this myself, apparently they got something out of near-empty Diet Coke cans, which anyone who drinks knows has NOTHING in it), and are very tough to get rid of.
Apparently they form what is called 'super-colonies'. Whereas most ants have a single nest and a single queen, these ants have many nests and many queens. I'm not sure if they cooperate or not, I'll take a look when I'm done with this. But needless to say, unless you manage to nail EVERY queen, sooner or later they will replenish themselves. Rather Ender's Game, huh?
It took two treatments with two bug-killers each time. They sprayed outside and pretty much everywhere in the house, and spread a sort of powder (contact-killer) in the attic. Over the next two weeks (the first treatment didn't finish the job), I saw more dead ants than many people probably see in a lifetime. I kept thinking of Toy Story with the plastic Army Men saying, "We never leave a man behind!" and thought of those ants. Somewhere back in their nests, there was considerable upset! "We lost another ten thousand without a trace, your Majesty!"
Of course, to be fair I also thought that was amusing too. Anyhoo, that's my story and now I'll go learn more myself about 'white-footed ants'.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Wow! I wonder how long these ants have been like this. Whether they're a new species or not, they seem to have been given some unique traits making them tough for humans to kill.
They originate from Japan, and (so far) are present only in Florida (man, we're ever so lucky with ants /sarcastically thinking of fire-ants), and are about 3mm long. A typical colony ranges from 400,000 to over 1,000,000 ants!
quote:1. Huge size (in population) of ant colonies. 2. Tremendous reproduction capabilities (through budding and swarming.) 3. Variety of food preferences. 4. Tiny body size enables entry to most structures, natural and man-made. 5. Nests (or ant beds) in a wide variety of areas, all connected and part of super colony. 6. Not all foods are shared from foraging workers to larvae (making ant baits ineffective.) 7. Sterile workers lay unfertilized eggs; this is food for non-foraging members of the ant colony.
Normal baits don't work because they still leave UP TO HALF of the colony alive!
Like several other ants, white-footed ants 'farm' aphids.
Adults in the colony not foraging are fed sterile eggs, laid by sterile female workers. I guess that's like we do with chickens, but of the same species. Repulsive to we civilized sorts, but also very clever, evolution-wise.
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posted
I realize that Mommy Bugga Bugga may not be internet-accessible right now, so maybe someone else can answer the question.
I hate (as in am petrified of) bees. Bees in any form freak me out: honeybees, bumblebees, wasps, hornets -- even flies kinda make me freak out now and then because the big slow ones sound like bees. I'm trying to overcome this, if only to model for my children the "they're not out to get you, don't bother them and they won't bother you" thing that I've never believed.
Well, in light of my aim to be kinder to the six-legged crawly creepy buzzing flying nasty evil... um... the members of the bee kingdom (I guess that'd be queendom), I'm trying to live and let live. But there's this wasp that started building a nest that hangs over our front door.
Sorry -- I've got my limits, and walking under a wasp's nest every time I go in and out of my house is beyond them. So I waited until the guy wasn't around, and I knocked the thing down (it wasn't very big -- maybe five centimeters across). I didn't move it away -- it's still on the ground. I figured if he thought it just fell or blew down or something that he wouldn't be looking for someone to blame.
Well, a day later, he started building a new one. I didn't let him get too far -- again when he wasn't there, I knocked the thing down. Also (at Mama's suggestion) sprayed some ant/roach spray (we didn't have bee stuff) around the area, hoping that would discourage him from trying again.
Doesn't seem to be discouraging him. He's still hanging out up there, not constantly but repeatedly, and I'm afraid he's gonna start again. Is there a reasonable way I can get him to move along without actually hurting him, or more importantly, without making him mad at me and mine? With my luck, my children will all be allergic to bees. Whereas I'm simply allergic to pain.
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All I know about wasps is you're supposed to get them at night (smoke them out?), and plant a bright light on the other side of the nest. That way if they get angry, they go toward the light instead of you. Hopefully. At least, that's what I've been told.
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Rakeesh - wow, these ants sound funky! At least they don't really do any damage. They just eat sweet things. They actually should be easy to control if you keep things clean. (But not if you have a messy baby, like I do. We have another ant invasion at the moment ). They sound like nice ants that have very effective survival strategies. And they're pretty!
Papa Moose - If it's a paper wasp, keep knocking down the early nest and destroying it. She won't know it's you, and eventually will figure out that the highly desirable location is not the best spot for her babies. I had one in my mailbox this year! It was pretty scary when I'd reach in my hand and a wasp or two would fly out! Eventually, though, a spider moved in. I didn't see any wasps after that. I also had to remove the beginning wasp nest every time I got the mail. I am currently wondering what makes certain spaces so desirable for wasp nesting. They really seem to like our doorways. And don't feel guilty about getting some wasp spray if you must. When it comes to a highly-trafficked area and you have little kids, you have justification for defending your area. Actually, I'm quite impressed that you got up the nerve to destroy the nest without killing the wasp. If you can do that, you can probably manage to discourage the mama from building there long term. Just keep knocking down what she makes whenever she's not there. She'll eventually get discouraged, or die without reproducing. On the mystical side, if you want to try it, go out and speak to the wasp. Tell it about your concerns and your good intentions. Let it know that you care about your babies and have no desire to harm the wasp's babies. Perhaps suggest to it another place to build that would be acceptable to you. And by all means, let me know what happens!
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a couple of months back.![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
). They sound like nice ants that have very effective survival strategies. And they're pretty! 
