Pavement Ants - Tetramorium immigrans

Today's video post is one with a different perspective on things compared to the norm. Although this blog is no stranger to watching Pavement Ant colonies battling each other as they establish their territorial boundaries for the year, rarely to I stay to witness a prolonged battle or how the tides turn throughout. As Pavement Ant colonies find each other, each battle becomes unique in its own way, but today's footage first showcases the height of a battle, followed by the progression that occurred an hour later. While initially the workers erupted and grappled each other as would be expected from rivaling colonies, at around 1:43/0:47 on the video (tumblr count/video time respectively) the battle taking place on the sidewalk had entered a new phase. The majority of both colony's forces have widely dispersed: remaining soldiers sprint around the terrain and the majority of the disputes and charging are directed towards the entrance of the combating nests. This is the way of Ant warfare, and after a few hours more, it will be as if this daylong fight never took place. The new boundaries will be set, and the colonies are allowed to develop. Their proximity to each other is still alarmingly close, so soil depth will need to be utilized for both colonies to expand as the year turns.

What a change that an hour can make. And furthermore what a time that can occur from nearly 7 years running a blog. In that time and with today's post, this blog has uploaded its 900th post! Just a handful more insects and it will be 1,000 posts! It's been quite an endeavor, but I'm grateful for every moment, discover and blog visitor. While time keeps marching forward, there will be many more insects to share, see and read about, and I wish that you'll stay along for the journey. Whether a new post or a old one, whether picture or video, and whether here on Tumblr or on my slowly growing YouTube Channel (and future platforms), I humbly thank you for visiting my blog and I appreciate your time and feedback. As always: to you, dear reader, and to and all those who’ve helped me on this insect-sharing journey, I extend my sincerest, heartfelt thanks for everything!

Ciarán Hinds & Abbey Lee as Henry & Elizabeth Kellenberg in Elizabeth Harvest / SXSW clip

ichigo: i'm not going. now get lost. 

keigo: but i even invited rukia! 

As Daron said in the crew's post-series AMA: "[Toffee] thought he won until he got his face blasted." My personal favorite part was when Toffee said "Only I know how this all turns out," and Ludo retorted back, "Turns out you're dead."

Toffee's death would have been a fitting end to his story, and I still maintain, a fitting end to Star's story as well. In another response from the AMA, Daron said "I feel like it's in the DNA of the universe to solve one problem but create another." The "other problem" created at the end of this scenario would have been Eclipsa.

I want to also touch on Toffee's first "death" and his final act from beyond the grave. I LOVED how Toffee was written in Storm the Castle. He spoke and did very little but accomplished the next phase of his plan nonetheless. Just look at this face:

This is the face of a (lizard-)man who is 110% in control of the situation.

We’re home~