This weekend I went on a hike every day, including Friday. On Saturday, I documented this. Yesterday was another hike, and today I went up to Santa Paula, CA. I saw two Formica species, including one that has an ID thread here, a Myrmecocystus sp, Linepithema humile, which is actually a rare sight for me, Dorymyrmex insanus, Liometopum occidentale, and I saw a Camponotus sp. major stick its head out of a hole in the ground.
Anyway, most of the cool things were found when I flipped a particular rock. The rock was not even so large, but there turned out to be a colony of these Formica sp. ants under it. Not particularly cool, but there were also massive velvet mites with them, and some workers visibly had young mites attached to their softer spots (the joints in the legs.) Also, there was a Myrmecophilus sp. individual there, which I found coincidental, because there was a topic about them recently. I was going to see if I could keep the Myrmecophilus sp, but I decided against it and let it go.
The velvet mite:
The velvet mite compared to the Formica sp. ant from the colony:
The Myrmecophilus sp. in a plastic test tube. Could not take a normal picture so I put it into the plastic test tube which I had to snap a few photos and then released it.
