Clearly a battle of two species taking place.
Extremely abundant
Collected on a deciduous stump with evidence of wood boring beetle infestation.
Over 5' long, found crossing the road in NW Ecuador at Dracula Reserve, around 2,000m elevation.
Drama. These guys all normally get along pretty well, but here a squirrel decided to start something and nearly got kicked in the head as reward. Moments later they were back to munching sunflower seeds side-by-side again.
lots of photos from various angles. if a key feature is missing, let me know and I may have a photo
Lady Beetle on the nose of a northern elephant seal
This observation is of the Fish, rather than the Snake that ingested it (listed separately).
My colleagues and I took this photograph of an actual original and unique X-Ray (physical "hard copy") film made in the Emergency Room of the University hospital in which I worked night shifts back in 2002. It was the regional center for medical treatment of snake bites in north central Florida. This Florida Cottonmouth's (Agkistrodon conanti) coiled body, head to tail, can be measured on the original film by laying a piece of string on the image, tracing the course of the backbone. At 58 inches, or 4 feet 10 inches (147 centimeters) then, this a pretty large snake as Water Moccasins go.
What's more, one of the main reasons we X-rayed it at all was that it had clearly recently eaten something. It had a large bulge in it's stomach, down about a third of it's body length, just past its air-filled lungs that are visible on the film as well defined darker shapes. We found the bulge was a big fish with a large blunt bony skull and easily discernable swim bladder, which we thought to be a catfish (though we lacked an Ichthyologist amongst the E.R. staff of course).
I can follow the fish's spine for much of its length in the image, but lose it somewhere along the snake's lung in the extreme right of the picture. There is an interesting and distinct structure visible at the top that looks to me like a bony spine at the front of the dorsal fin. The skull is about 7 centimeters long, and the fin spine about 3 centimeters long, measured directly from the actual film. I don't know whether the loose dense material below the swim bladder represents the fish's stomach contents, or something else in the snake's stomach. The X-Ray film was 11 by 14 inches in size, so the fish must have been roughly around a foot (30 centimeters) long in total. We did not, in any case dissect the snake in the E.R.
My impression at the time was that this was most likely something like a Brown Bullhead, just judging from what I could make out of its size and shape. It would be fascinating to hear from someone more familiar with fish skeletons and anatomy. I am sure identification from an X-Ray is possible, considering what can be done with even fossil remains among experts. I will defer to anyone with more experience reading fish X-rays.
The Radiological Technician that made the actual exposure for us on film, at my request, wrote the details of the exposure for future reference on the film itself, which, though the film suffered damage when it was later stolen from my vehicle inside a locked briefcase and dumped out in a back alley and further mistreated both by the thieves and the weather, I can still read most of what he wrote with a "magic marker":
"40(or 46) MA
1 MAS
56 KV"
Are there any X-Ray Tech's out there who can confirm that that is in fact a good exposure for a big dead snake with enclosed fish?
Taken from same colony as previous observations
Apologies for the awful conditions of this specimen
Crawling on Himalayan Blackberry foliage.
Keys to F. rubicunda
Mesosoma too hairy for aserva
lifer!
Male I’m assuming
Operárias carregando imaturas para fora do ninho. Registro após às 18h30.
moist lava tube, on walls, under lava rocks
My camera makes it look blue I don't know why
Vos queen found on lavender. She was so big she couldn't beat her wings while she was in the tube!
Found with @cheetolord02, his observation is linked here: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/149703302
Rhagodima cf. nigrocincta
Cincta (cinctus, cinctum) in latin means "surrounded by". So the portmanteau "nigrocincta" can mean "surrounding by black color". This might refer to colors and patterns on the abdomen of this species. Or it may not refer to black patches on some legs which does not form full circle/ring as in R. Annulata.
But these informations are not clear to me as per the description by Henry Meyners Bernard who described the species as Rhax nigrocincta along with Rhax Howesii (currently assigned as Rhagodes melanopygus). Another information I can find is that as per Simon's 1885 description R. annulata has body length of 18mm and as per Bernard's description of R. nigrocincta is around 1.25 to 2 inches. T̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶c̶i̶m̶e̶n̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶s̶a̶w̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶r̶o̶u̶n̶d̶ ̶1̶.̶2̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶1̶.̶5̶ ̶i̶n̶c̶h̶e̶s̶ ̶l̶o̶n̶g̶.̶ (The specimen was just 2 cms long after I re-checked the video where it climbed to my friend's hand. Videograb is attached as last photo.)
Henry Meyners Bernard's 1894 article on the species called "On two new species of Rhax. Journal of Linnean Soicety London" can be read here: https://ww.rcin.org.pl/dlibra/publication/88759/edition/67942/content?ref=struct
The illustrations on the book has been digitized and uploaded to Wiki Commons over here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhagodima_nigrocincta.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhagodima_nigrocincta_cutted.jpg
Comparing the images above I can see similar black patches on the legs. Also the white moustache pattern has good resemblance on the individual. But I don't see the spurs specified in illustrations.
Note: I am not conforming on the species level identification here. I have just added my notes here for future reference for anybody who wants to take this subject for research.
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Dealate queen found under fallen poulus tremuloides log with large thatched mound. Formica obscuripes workers were found inside the log, in addition to a sizable colony of Formicoxenus hirticornis.
Formica podzolica
An ant a fraction of a second before biting the leg of a Bumble bee who came down to pollinate the thistle that they are both on. the bee promptly flew off after being bitten. Highlands, BC.
red ant of unknown density on sand prairie not observed in 2019