Mating Dance of the Desert Leaf Cutter Ant

September 20, 2025. Four and three nights ago we finally got some measurable rain. Two days ago, our Leaf-cutter Ants swarmed and danced in the early morning hours. As every time I spot this event, so probably once a year, the column of dancers rises and falls over a Thuja tree (Conifer like a cedar) in our drive way. One big old colony lives not far from it under an Ironwood. The dancers probably come together from several nests in the area. I know that I would find other dancing swarms simultaneously further down the road (this is a community with dirt roads, losely spaced houses, and mainly desert or not-at-all-landscaped yards.

These non-sting ants (Desert Leaf-cutting Ant (Acromyrmex versicolor)) live quietly in populous communities deep under ground with extensive fungus-growing chambers. Ever now and then they will venture out, cut leaves, carry them home and compost them under ground for their fungus gardens. (denuded bushes usually are not killed but rejuvenated. The larger Atta species in Central America can cause financial set backs for owners of teak plantations because the wood production is slowed down by the loss of leaves. But in a normal desert garden, the occasional raids of our small Acromyrmex are usually not more than a nuisance) When the weather is 'bad' too dry, too hot .... the ants close their entrances and stay hidden for months.

BTW, the characteristic cone shaped structures often seen are not nest entrances but heaps of sand that is expelled when new fungus chambers are built.

Of course, the entire dance party serves bringing nubile females and males together. The mature colony produces those about once every year and releases them all at once after a certain trigger, a good monsoon rain in this case. The sexes find each other up in the air, but then the 'bonded couples' or rather groups of one female with several males usually sink to the ground together .... This time I got the inpression that there were fewer females than normal .. annecdotal but possible in the current stress situation

PhippenMuseum Western Art Show

My Ceramic display

No body is left behind - Coati mundi family

Three Graces - Sonoran Desert Toads

A Hary Situation

Secrets Shared - Racoons

Fox Glow

Nearly full ensemble

A Rattling Complication

Yesterday evening Chaco snake-barked and I had to relocate a small rattler from the patio. Before releasing my captures, I often take their portrait. This one was rather small, so I thougt one of my replica pots decorated with big double spirals would make the perfect complement to the coiled snake. At first, the reptile wasn't having any of it and was determined to leave in a straight line away from me and my pot.

It took a lot of convincing and stacking and restacking the unwilling star of the photoshoot before he agreed to sit, and coil up, next to one of the large black and white spirals on the Tularosa Black on White (or Cibola White Ware) Pot. But the pot was absorbing the early morning sun and the snake had had a chilly night. So eventually he snuggled up against the pot and I got some photos.

I like this one best that I took in my own cast shadow to avoid too much distraction from slanting light and body shadows of pot and snake. Also, the snake is coiled up right next to the spiral pattern which was the initial inspiration for the imprompto photo shoot

But Snek now developed ideas of his own and began to investigate the big warm object next to him. Are there ancient memories in the genes of his tribe of living next to pots like this in ruins of the Southwest and even further back of indigenous people who made pots like this?

Now he seemed very comfortable, very familiar with the set-up. He explored ...

He found the entrance, slid in and settled in. A retreat made for his size. I could just see him shuffling his coils, resting his head close to the exit.

There was no way to convince him to give up his cave. He felt safe and cozy. He gave a relaxed little buzz when I pked him with a stick. He never bothered to strike. He felt at home. Iwould have to leave my pretious pot out there in the State Trust Land until he decided to leave on his own, just hoping that nobody would find it. I could just imagine the outcome if someone did: A shriek, a dropped, broken pot, maybe a bitten finger? Eventually I ran home to get my lizard-stick, thin, with a noose made from fishing line. With it, I managed to pull him out of the pot, only to find out that it takes handling the caught critter, usually a small lizard, to open the noose and release the victim. To do this with the snake, I had to run home again and fetch a heamostat to hold the head and my little nail scissors to cut the thread. All good now, snake indignant but free, pot home with me, I maybe a little smarter?

Size matters!

Size matters! If the pony was the size of a beetle - that would be an easy keeper! If the beetle was the size of a pony, I would saddle him and fly! (actual size of my latest mud pony and Palo Verde Root borer, no photo montage. The stuff to do when it's too cold to go 'bugging') Actually - if a homoiotherm animal like a pony was that small, it would have to live on a high caloric diet and eat constantly, more so than a hummingbird. So no easy keeper at all. And a huge, rideable beetle would suffer from oxygen deprivation even at ground level, much less high up in the air. Bummer!

Coyote Buddies

Here in nw Tucson our coyotes are very vocal and active right now (mating season). A few days ago my heeler visited our neighbor and returned from there playing with a coyote girl that he has known for a couple of years. She was following him up our long drive way, but she has a partner now who was not happy with that. His hackles were up and he chased my heeler off. But then she ran after the dog again, so he made playful moves at her again, until her mate rebuffed him again. All the time the trio was moving towards me and my leashed Aussie who was barking angrily. Finally the male coyote had enough and drove his girl off, and my heeler joined me to go inside. Very clearly, hackles were raised but no further aggression. Pretty soon all of them, coyotes and my 3 dogs were howling, just separated by our dog run fence that the coyotes could easily scale, but they never have in 23 years and several generations of dogs. Our little adventure inspired me to make a coyote of my local wild clay