The Second Annual New Jersey Ant Together

So yesterday was the second annual NJ Ant Together. The title is a play on words; birders have birding so ant people have anting. So now we can just look for ants, together.

I always hesitate to make the event public for fear of someone showing up thinking this would be great for their children to do. It's NOT! This is a hiking/nature walk that lasts the better half of the day in tick and chigger filled fields and forests. Though this year despite walking through waist high grass I barely got any chiggers, and despite finding deer tracks through the woods our total tick count was 3 plus some really pale and young "baby ticks" which I'm not familiar with.

Our first location was Prospertown Lake, the parking lot of which is located down the street from Six Flags Great Adventure. The cool breeze over the lake, and cloudy over cast kept what should have been 95F degree weather feeling more like it was 80 outside. (There are a number of SPF and Bug Repellents that have anti sweat additives to them.)

Upon walking around we were treated stands of Prickly Pear, a type of cactus that's found throughout the United States.

There was also some type of creeping morning glory that I thought was neat.

As luck would have it one of the first ants we found was one I've been looking for for the past five years or so.

Trachymyrmex septentrionalis, a North American fungus growing ant.

These ants forage for fallen leaf litter and flower petals as well as the frass to caterpillars, grass hoppers and other plant chewing insects to fertilize their underground fungus gardens.

Not far away I found one such fertilizer factory nibbling on some Virginia Creeper. This turns into a Sphinx Moth of some sort.

When we spooked him I though it was funny how he sucked his head in to look like an ass, and made sure to show off the fake eye spot at his rear.

Unfortunately most colonies we found were inactive. But once we found one still digging, it became apparent that they were locally abundant wherever there was sand.

Aphaenogaster treatae colonies were abundant along the forest edge. This is one of the largest Aphaenogaster species in the region. They're just shy of being the same size as Formica pallidefulva, a common lawn species. 

This darker Formica threw me off at first. To get them to be more active we gave them a cricket.

I believe this is actually a darker color form of Formica incerta, which can also look identical to Formica pallidefulva. I'm so used to seeing these two species as the same color, that I found it odd that one would be different looking in another environment but not the other. Ignoring color, these two species differ in the amount of hairs on the mesosoma, queen number, and general colony size. 

Just in the forest we located a different species of Formica, this time something in the sanguinea group, which are slave making ants of other Formica species such as the two already mentioned. 

We weren't actually sure what we were witnessing. The colony appeared to be transporting cocoons to another location some 100 yards away; which we thought to be an outrageous distance for an ant line to travel. They were either moving the nest, or conducting a raid on one of their host species which we were unable to see. 

Before leaving that location, I found a population of Asclepias incarnata ssp. pulchra. Basically this is a variety of Swamp Milkweed that has hair all over the stem and leaves. The flowers are also a delightful shade of pink. 

Next we went to Turkey Swamp Park to revisit the mounds of Formica exsectoides. Getting there requires you to walk through two great big open fields that are mowed for acres and acres. The second field has a very small patch of land that's not mowed at all. And I can't help but view this as a huge waste of space. One field... okay I get it, but to have two of them and only feature a little bit of ... I can't even call it a meadow. I think their lawn mower just ran out of gas. They could install a meadow garden here and offer path ways through sweeping drifts of native grasses and wildflowers. 

There were stands of Common Milkweed there but no Monarch butterflies at all. Other milkweed using insects such as this Four Eyed Beetle were making use of the milkweed but Monarchs seem to be in short supply this year. 

We came across an ant that I'd never seen before. The sensation didn't really strike me until I went to save them onto my computer and I didn't even know the genus, or what to call them.

These are Dolichoderus plagiatus, which I found out later after having them ID'd. 

Here I am standing on a Formica exsectoides mound. It's a little deceptive how high it actually is. The lighter colored tops of them are this year's excavated soil. There is then a lower layer that's a more gradual incline outward. And then an even more gradual slope around that from where the ants have tracked dirt and such around. Behind the mound in the back it's about 3' to the forest floor, whereas looking at it this way they seem shorter.

This species is very aggressive. Mobs of alert workers gathered just about everywhere that we stepped. As I took pictures and recorded them, they started attacking my shoes and climbing up my legs. 

You have to be very good at hiding to live around ants like this, such as this caterpillar that blends in with a stick. 

As we got away from the colonies, roughly ten minutes of walking, we finally started to see other ants. Camponotus chromaiodes, which typically dominates forests is pushed off to the sides and occurs in places where Formica exsectoides doesn't inhabit. 

 A C. chromaiodes worker tending aphids. I actually thought the aphids were being tended by Crematogaster at first then I realized that wasn't the case. It's just some of the aphids are really dark and shiny like a Crematogaster's gaster (abdomen).

Damaged trees oozed sap and were attracting different types of ants as well as these sap beetles. 

At a third location there were stands of Clethra alnifolia in flower. This is an amazingly fragrant plant that bustles with pollinators. 

I also located a second population of the Hairy Swamp Milkweed.

Courting pairs of Spice Bush Swallowtails fluttered about them all.

This last location was a man made lake to support the county water supply. But in its construction they'd flooded much of the adjacent forest, creating a swamp of dead trees.

New Camera

Canon PowerShot SX50 HS 12MP Digital Camera with 2.8-Inch LCD (Black)
Which I bought because it topped the list of a few macro point and shoot though really it seemed to be a narrow margin between that and the next four below it. Sadly it doesn't have any port to plug in a portable flash, (at least not that I've found). 

Also it does NOT come with the USB cord required to get images off of the camera and onto the computer! Thankfully my first camera years ago was a Canon and I still had a cord laying around. 

Raynox DCR-250 Super Macro Snap-On Lens
I also bought this which might have been the better buy because it's almost universally able to attach to any point and shoot camera.  

All of which came at the recommendation by Alex Wild, a professional photographer in the scientific world who teaches classes around the world with emphasis on photographing insects. (Though he's more so a professor at one of the Universities I believe.)

So after a day of shooting here's some of what I came up with.

Cup Plant Flowers

Cup Plants, Silphium perfoliatum, have started blooming this week.

A bumblebee working a Cup Plant flower.

I'm a little preoccupied with testing out my new camera to post much though. Needless to say I'm happy so far.

The Wet Year of Wild Senna

So back before I knew what type of soil I had, where the drainage was, where the wet spots were, I planted a Wild Senna, Senna hebecarpa.

As it turns out that was an awful spot to plant it. It's just too dry there. The plant finally got healthy enough to flower last year after three or four years of trying to grow there. 

This year is shaping up to be one of the wettest on record. Normally right now we'd be in a three week long drought with almost no rainfall lasting more than a half hour at most. Now though it's been raining for a good hour or more, and sometimes about half the day, with flood warning and severe thunderstorms happening almost daily.

The added rain has allowed this plant to flower like crazy.

Pretty.

All that being said, I'm a little disappointed by the amount of pollinators showing up. The main problem is that plants only produce pollen, which seems typical of most of the pea family.

Snowberry Clearwing Moth

I was out in the garden yesterday and spied a Snowberry Clearwing, Hemaris diffinis, laying eggs sporadically all over the Coral Honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens. She flew around sampling leaves and would occasionally place one on the under side before flying off to locate another spot. I'll have to keep an eye out for caterpillars in the next week or so assuming the ants don't remove them first. I occasionally get sudden bursts of these hummingbird moths in my yard, usually groups of 12 or so all at once and I always wondered where they were coming from.

Bees Bees and More Bees on Yellow Flowers

A bumblebee on Stiff Coreopsis, Coreopsis palmata.

Same plant but this stem fell out into the grass. This is a sweat bee so named because they attracted to the salt in your sweat and sometimes land on you to collect it. Personally I've never had this happen though.

A honeybee on the yellow form of Butterflyweed, Asclepias tuberosa.

A bumblebee on the same plant.

Here some other type of bee is on the plant.

Annual Sunflowers, Helianthus annuus.

Great Coneflower, Rudbeckia maxima, getting more attention than other Rudbeckia plants I grow.

Even tiny bees seem to enjoy the odd shaped flower heads.

A Nonnative Treat

So maybe two years ago I was at the Philadelphia International Flower Show and one of the vendors was this French women selling nothing but Lilies. As the show takes place over the winter they were all in the form of bulbs. I forget how much they cost but apparently I came home with five of them. Last year they didn't do anything; this year they're up with force and flowering.

Dear god! This monstrous flower is larger than any Amaryllis I've ever grown. It's supposed to be some kind of lily but the flower is enormous, and the anthers are longer than my fingers. My brother's bride to be took one look at them and demanded she walk down the isle with a bouquet of them.... tragically the wedding is in October so that's not really doable but I'm sure a floret will have something nice.

So this clearly isn't a native plant. True they look lovely and any gardener would be happy to have them growing in their garden. But as I'm committed to the native theme I feel it might be best if I dig up the bulbs later this winter and give them to my brother's bride as a gift. She seemed to enjoy the flower more than me and I know she loves cut flowers. They're fragrant by the way.

Personally I try to garden with the theme that it's one thing to be pretty but quite anther to be pretty useful. Right now I'm at a loss to imagine what could pollinate them. Maybe half a dozen swallowtails and hummingbirds could probably fit in it all at once to sip nectar. There's enough pollen on the anthers to stain everything they touch. Any who, I'm sure she'll be thrilled with the gift.

Silver-spotted Skipper Caterpillar on False Indigo Bush

I found the tent to a Silver-spotted Skipper, Epargyreus clarus, on the False Indigo Bush, Amorpha fruticosa, today. I'd planted the sapling last fall as a nitrogen-fixing shrub/small tree right next to the vegetable garden. Their leaves decompose as a natural fertilizer and their roots enrich the soil somewhat. Though spraying Miracle Grow is certainly more effective.

Inside the little tent (or shed as it's called for reasons that escape me) I found the little caterpillar tucked away. They hang out here and feed at night so they're less likely to be eaten by birds.

Unfortunately when I tore it open initially I'd expected to find a spider. Oops. So the little guy jumped ship after I left. I tried putting the leaves back over it but he didn't repair it at all. 

So this had me thinking I should inspect some of my other plants for caterpillars, such as Wild Senna, which they also might use. Sadly I didn't find anything else but this one caterpillar. It's great that this sapling got me success on the first years though. I'm still debating if I should prune it into a shrub or a small tree.

More Ant Plant Relations

Ants marching around on plants is something of a common sight in my yard. 

Here a Camponotus nearcticus worker explores the leaves to a cup plant. Likely she's interested in small amounts of pollen or sweetness on the leaves or simply foraging for some insect or some other resource for the colony. Occasionally aphids will drip honeydew down onto lower leaves and it's this that ants go for, but that's not the case here. I've actually never found aphids on cup plants before. Cup Plants are related to Perennial Sunflowers which produce extra floral nectar so I suspect that might be what's going on.

I'd never found aphids on parsley before either but that's happened this year. Sometimes aphids don't afflict the same host plants each year or at least don't do so as badly as on previous years. The ants here are Tapinoma sessile which has become one of the most common ants in my yard. I believe my use of a green house to grow seedlings is the cause. Because their colonies move into the flats I effectively divide the colony every time I plant something in the yard.

Some insects only require the protection from ants during the early stages. Here is a bad photo of some Leaf Hoppers. The younger nymphs are tended by ants but older ones, who've gained their hood, "wings", and brighter color, tend away from this relation. They become fidgety and are quick to flee when predators approach, something aphids don't do.

In the absence of aphids ants and free sources of nectar, ants will out right steal it from flowers. Here a tiny Nylanderia faisonensis worker explores the fanged flowers of an Asclepias tuberosa plant. They're a rather small ant that's able to get into the deep crevices. 

Oddly enough the flowers of Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnatta, are even smaller and I found them being robbed out by a much larger species of ant, Camponotus pennsylvanicus. I suspect the large mandibles of this carpenter ant aid in their ability to get at the nectar somehow but I haven't had the time to inspect the flowers for damage.