Fun Facts (Random Chapter Topics)

Objects Found In Desert Country 7...

Honeypot Ants.................................

This honeypot ant's abdomen is so swollen with nectar and other sugary substances that it cannot move and stays anchored to the ceiling. Ants like this one serve to feed the nest. Honeypot Ants are found in North America, Southern Africa, and Australia, where they are one of the traditional foods of some of the Abrioriginal people of the central deserts.

Jewel Wasp
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A Jewel Wasp takes a drink. Jewel Wasps are one of the solitary wasps that live on their own instead of in colonies. The adults feed on nectar from flowers, but their young devour cockroaches caught for them by the adult female. She hunts down the cockroach, stings it to paralyze it, and then drags it into a hole where she lays an egg on it. When the young hatch from the eggs it feeds on the paralyzed but live cockroach.

Harvester Ants.................................

These industries ants collect seed to store in granaries in their nests. When a scout ant finds a rich supply of seeds, it trails a special odor from the tip of its abodmen all the way back to the nest. Nest mates then follow the trail out to the seeds to collect them for the nest. The ants eat most of the seeds, but they do reject or drop a few, and therefore help plants by dispersing the seeds.

Ant Lion...........................................

The larvae (young) of this winged insect is called an Anti Lion. As soon as it hatches, it digs a pit in the sand and hides at the bottom with its only its jaws exposed, waiting for an insect, perhaps an ant, to come into the pit. When an insects does, the Ant Lion flicks sand at it so that it loses its footing and slides down to be snapped up by the deadly jaws.

Domino Beetle.................................

The white spots on Domino Beetles' backs are a warning that these beetles are armed with chemical weapons. When threatened, they squirt a jet of acid at an attacker.

After this, the attacker will be unlikely to try to eat a beetle with white spots again. During the day, Domino Beetles' lurk under rocks and holes made by other animals. They come out at night to hunt other insects and very small prey, This Domino Beetle lives in the drylands of Northern Africa through to the Middle East.

Darkling Beetle
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This beetle lives in the Namib Desert, where it feeds on windblown plants debris and seeds on the surface of the sand dunes. It is an unusual kind of Darkling Beetle in that it has all-white wing cases. These may reflect the heat and allow the beetle to stay out finding food for longer than Black Beetles.

Beetle In A Headstand..............:.::
Moisture in the early morning fog in the Namib Desert has condensed on this Darkling Beetle's back; the dew then runs down into its mouth. This is the only way this beetle gets a drink. It spends the night buried in the sand, but should there be nighttime fog, it will come to the surface. Dew-collecting beetles also live in other Deserts such as the Wahiba Sands in the Southern Arabian Peninsula, where there is coastal fog and high dew fall. Some Darkling Beetles make little furrows in the sand or small hummocks to collect dew.