Australian garden insects with Denis Crawford
Ant flights, sometimes referred to as swarms, are mating flights or ‘nuptial flights’. Their purpose is for males and females from different nests to meet up, mate, and begin new colonies.
The winged males and winged females are reproductive ants, unlike worker ants which are all sterile females. Ant flights vary in their timing by the species involved.
I hope you enjoy the video. Please tell me about it in the comments!
It’s incredible to think that giant insects once ruled the skies, 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous period. The very first flying insects evolved even further back – about 400 million years ago. Insects had the skies to themselves – there were no flying reptiles, let alone birds or flying mammals.
There is a lively debate going on as to why the Carboniferous insects were so large. I cover a couple of the theories in this video.
I hope you enjoy the video.
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LINKS to some resources:
Science Daily
UCSC
PNAS
IMAGE credits:
Meganeura monyi:
Muséum de Toulouse, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Meganeuropsis permiana:
Zyoute, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Paleodyctioptera:
Jakub Prokop, Ewa Krzemińska, Wiesław Krzemiński, Kateřina Rosová, Martina Pecharová, André Nel and Michael S. Engel,
CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Paleodyctioptera: See page for author, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Subtitle: Watch a hover fly larva eat the aphids on my cucumbers
Hover flies (Syrphidae) are common insects in gardens. We see them flying around flowers – hovering in mid-air like mini helicopters. The adult hover flies feed on nectar and pollen and are important pollinators.
Hover fly larvae are ferocious aphid-eating maggots. Hover fly larvae are the most effective aphid predators in my garden. They can be a bit hard to see, especially when they are in their early larval stages, but a hand lens of some sort will help.
I hope you enjoy the video. I’ve wanted to shoot some decent footage of hover fly larvae for ages!
I am trying something a bit different with this video. I’m not in it! Let me know what you think in the comments.