stevenw12339's Favorites

In the mid 1980s I lived in a house along Shoal Creek in central north Austin. There was a rocky 20 ft cliff above the creek and Canyon Wrens were regular visitors to my yard.

I am posting scans of some old, marginal 35 mm slides. gcwarbler had retained many boxes of some of my culled slides from 20-30 years ago. I have enough to keep me busy for a while with scanning, etc. (thanks Chuck….I think!). These will all be of records I had not posted to iNat previously. There has been considerable color shift in many of these slides over the years, unfortunately. Sorry for the marginal/poor quality of most of these but they are all I have.

In the last 10 years alone this species has almost been extrapated from this area. It has become extremely common to find them dug up and uprooted with their roots partially eaten, presumably by javelina or feral pigs. Soon they will be all gone.

Very confused, was as big or bigger than my Vizsla and the exact same color (golden brown) - didn't get a good look at the tail, but it was large with a distinctive head shape and swam fast. Perhaps an escaped capybara from an exotic game ranch? Or maybe just a massive Nutria or beaver? Not sure!

Phylum: Arthropoda
Subphylum: Crustacea
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
ID Features: Soft shell, small size, residence in oyster.
Fun Fact: A pea crab will live much of its life in a single oyster.

Colony in decaying wood of Pinus log, in open Pinus, Quercus, Ceanothus woodland. Tapinoma sessile was inhabiting the same log, around 2 meters away. No mixing of the workers was observed, but all the T. sessile workers were consistently black. Last image shows mounted specimen.

A single dealate queen was found in a small wash, probably a straggler from a daytime/morning flight. It appears to be the same species as the first phoretica queen found in Arizona, but it is difficult to tell without proper specimen photos for both of them, as a lot of specific features seem to be very dependent on the angle. There are some minor (although probably not notable) differences. Specifically the hair length on the head, mesoscutellar disc, and gaster (maybe). Possibly also the antennal scape length.

Didn't believe my eyes when I first saw it, I never expected that they would actually go this far north. This opens up their range a whole lot, although I do think that they'd still be more common in the south.

Not associated with any other ants, but hyatti, xerophila, and micula are the most common (or at least most conspicuous) Pheidole species in the area. P. rhea may also be present, but I haven't seen them here yet.