Wayne's Trivia Notes #18
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 Wayne's Trivia Notes #18   © W.P. Armstrong    All Facebook Notes & Images   
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Wayne's Trivia Note #452 (7 June 2017)

"Corpse carrying" behavior in ants is stimulated by oleic acid, a fatty acid found in many plant oils including olive & sesame. When dead ants emit oleic acid, worker ants remove the corpses and deposit them at the ant graveyard outside their nest. If a drop of oleic acid is placed on live ants, they are also carried to the colony graveyard!


Wayne's Trivia Note #453 (9 June 2017)

A Northern Harrier gliding over the summit of Owens Peak yesterday (8 June 2017). More commonly observed over marshlands, both males and females are definitely flying over and landing on Owens Peak. I have also observed a male dropping a mouse in midair that was caught by the female! Sony HX50V hand held.


Wayne's Trivia Note #454 (17 June 2017)

Happy Father's Day (18 June 2017), posted on Facebook day before Father's Day: Image of my father (Paul Armstrong), carpenter extraordinaire, working in his carpenter shop (City of Arcadia, CA), circa 1960s.


Wayne's Trivia Note #455 (12 June 2017)

There are hundreds of uses for duct tape. Here's another one: A cupholder for my old truck!


Wayne's Trivia Note #456 (15 June 2017)

Beautiful red wildflowers in full bloom on Owens Peak right now (15 June 2017)! 3-Part Image: Mimulus aurantiacus var. puniceus (monkey flower), Silene laciniata ssp. laciniata (Indian Pink) & Delphinium cardinale (scarlet larkspur).


Wayne's Trivia Note #457 (22 June 2017)

Disclaimer: No original pixels were harmed during the making of this image; however, pixels were added with the Photoshop plug-in "Perfect Resize." Mediocre images, but at least I can verify with certainty that this celestial body in our southwestern sky on 21 June 2017 is truly Saturn!


Wayne's Trivia Note #458 (23 June 2017)

A $12 Kikkerland clip-on macro lens for your smartphone! An inexpensive way to get close-up pictures of insects! Available from Amazon.com.


Wayne's Trivia Note #459 (24 June 2017)

Compound eye of a beetle eye photographed with iPhone 6 and $12 clip-on macro lens! It doesn't beat a high quality Canon or Nikon lens, but not bad for such an inexpensive device.


Wayne's Trivia Note #460 (29 June 2017)

These are not ice cubes. They are grains of table salt on a black range top, photographed with an iPhone 6 & clip-on macro lens. Average grains are about 1/3 of a millimeter on a side. This is roughly the size of the Australian Wolffia angusta, world's smallest one-seeded fruit!


Wayne's Trivia Note #461 (4 July 2017)


Wayne's Trivia Note #462 (5 July 2017)

The lawn at Wayne's Word is now replaced by flagstone. This wild rabbit helps me by cutting sprouting grass plants between stones. His reward is a bowl of rabbit food from Petco!


Wayne's Trivia Note #463 (16 July 2017)

Two more uses for duct tape: Trapping ant infestation & laminated dead ant bookmark. Special thanks to Shannon for the 1st suggestion!


Wayne's Trivia Note #464 (19 July 2017)

I have been examining an Argentine ant midden (ant graveyard) at my home. To my surprise I found some unexpected dead species, including a tiny fungus-farming ant with a head that resembles a creature from the movie "Predator."


Wayne's Trivia Note #465 (25 July 2017)

Yesterday my high-tech dentist made a 3-D image of my badly worn bicuspids with a graphics program on her PC. She sent it by WiFi to a milling machine in another room that made two crowns from small cubes of lithium disilicate while I waited. No temps needed! See Milling Machine


Wayne's Trivia Note #466 (5 August 2017)

San Diego County (3 August 2017) under massive monsoonal thunderheads: I found a huge carpenter ant in Santa Ysabel & a minute thief ant on a bridle path in San Marcos. Two very diverse ants in the same day! Actually, Malaysia has a larger carpenter ant and a smaller ant occurs on Maui!


Wayne's Trivia Note #467 (21 August 2017)

I should have gone to Jackson Hole!