Wayne's Word Index Noteworthy Plants Trivia Lemnaceae Biology 101 Botany Scenic Wildflowers Trains Spiders & Insects Search  INDICES:   Trivia Notes   Alien Species   Humorous   Remember When   All Facebook Notes   Wayne's Trivia Notes #40   © W.P. Armstrong    All Facebook Notes & Images    Published Occasionally On Facebook Go To Latest Trivia Note On This Page Wayne's Trivia Note #865 (8 July 2023) The annual tarweeds (Deinandra fasciculata) are in bloom again in coastal sage scrub near Palomar College. This plant is fascinating to me because a related perennial California tarweed gave rise to the Silver Sword Alliance on the Hawaiian Islands. This is one of the most remarkable stories of my botanical career. See my next post! 60,000 centuries ago, an ancestral CA tarweed rafted to the Hawaiian Islands where it evolved into magnificent endemic plants of the silver sword alliance. See my next post Wayne's Trivia Note #866 (18 July 2023) You have probably guessed that I turned my latest retirement endeavor into an obsession with ants. It would take another lifetime to become really good at their IDs, so I must rely on expert entomologists (specifically myrmecologists). A retired Palomar colleague asked what if ants were the size of a golden retriever. Ants are limited in size by their exoskeleton & physiology, but if they were the size of a large dog during the Cretaceous, velociraptors would be in danger! Because of their reduced or nonexistent eyes, army ants are blind and follow closely behind the ant in front of them. Imagine the following scenario: You are running as fast as you can, following a pheromone scent trail behind your sisters. For some reason your group becomes separated from the main foraging trail. You are blind and must rely on the recognition scent of the sisters in front of you. Eventually a new pheromone trail is laid down, but you are running in a continuously rotating circle. Your situation is critical because you are in an endless loop and will eventually die of exhaustion. This is precisely what happens to army ants in tropical America.   Minute Eyeless Army Ant From Superstition Mtns, Arizona   Description of the Ideal Army Ant Soldier! Wayne's Trivia Note #867 (22 July 2023) This Mexican agave (Agave vilmoriniana) at my home in Twin Oaks Valley is monocarpic: i.e. it flowers once & dies; however, all is not lost. It produces hundreds of baby plantlets along its tall flower stalk. This condition is termed viviparous, meaning "live birth", like many animals, including people! It is sometimes called "octopus agave" because of the rosettes of arching, twisted leaves. Wayne's Trivia Note #868 (24 July 2023) "Ants have the largest biomass of any group of animals on earth." I suppose this depends on how you define group. "The total weight of all the ants in Africa exceeds the weight of all the elephants." "There are 20 quadrillion ants on our planet (20 followed by 15 zeros)." I have more of these gee-whiz facts. A peer-reviewed article “The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on Earth” published in PNAS (National Academy of Sciences) by Patrick Schultheiss, et al. (2022) confirms some of these amazing estimates. Wayne's Trivia Note #869 (10 August 2023) I thought my recent, common eye issue was interesting. It has a relatively simple cure. Check with your eye doctor if you feel like something is in your eyes, it may be your meibomian gland! Wayne's Trivia Note #870 (12 August 2023) Western conenose bug (Triatoma protracta): Not a good idea to have this native true bug (Order Hemiptera; Suborder Heteroptera) in your bedroom! Wayne's Trivia Note #871 (14 August 2023) Sexuality in common figs is very complicated. Typically the female tree bears edible seed-bearing fruit and gives rise to baby trees. The tiny seedlings in this image came from my male tree called a caprifig. Typically its fruit are filled with tiny fig wasps who pollinate female trees. I have yet to find a photo of baby figs from a male fig tree on the Internet! I am inspired by remarkable biological phenomena like this. Wayne's Trivia Note #872 (16 August 2023) Last night's sunset from my front yard (15 Aug 2023). I zoomed up on palm trees in foreground. It reminded me of another time & place: The shores of a tropical island where I once looked for drift seeds. Wayne's Trivia Note #873 (18 August 2023) Ingenious orb weaver in my front yard. She constructed her web near light source! Wayne's Trivia Note #874 (21 August 2023) I recently watched a PBS special about Baja, CA cave painting photographer extraordinaire Harry Crosby. It reminded me of my quest to find the extraordinary rock fig (Ficus petiolaris) of Sierra de la Giganta east of Loreto. Many years ago I hiked up this mountain with a Palomar College botany student. Wayne's Trivia Note #875 (25 August 2023) I have thousands of 35mm Kodachrome transparencies, one of the best films ever made. A quick way to digitize them is to photograph them on a light box (i.e. with backlighting). I used my iPad for these images. Wayne's Trivia Note #876 (30 August 2023) Zoomed up on moonrise above ridge overlooking Twin Oaks Valley with Sony HX-50. This is 2nd full moon of August 2023. This event happens once in a blue moon! It is especially rare because this is a super moon. Wayne's Trivia Note #877 (1 September 2023) Just found this minute insect in my yard. I originally called it a chalcid wasp, but was corrected by entomologist James Trager at Bug Guide. I have seen bark lice and book lice, but didn't realize there were psocid species with 4 wings. In fact, I included an image of wingless bark louse and pseudoscorpion from ponderosa pine on Palomar Mountain. A pseudoscorpion and its favorite food--a bark louse. This tiny cousin of the scorpion lives under the bark flakes of pine trees. Scholarly ones that live between the pages of books are called "book scorpions." All text material & images on these pages copyright © W.P. Armstrong