Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Sausage Fly

This is the sausage fly:

(I didn't have a decent picture, so I stole one from the internet)


According to Wikipedia, it is the male of the army ant genus Dorylus, and its large abdomen is bloated with sperm. According to most people here, it is the queen, and its abdomen is bloated with eggs (and also sperm, hopefully). Either way, there seems to be agreement that these are the largest individuals in any ant species.

Tanya claims to be deathly allergic to them; many others are deathly grossed out.

According to local entomologist folklore, these queens seek out a new location to start a new colony. According to Wikipedia, these males seek out a colony with virgin queens; when they find one, their wings are cut off (by themselves or by worker ants), they impregnate the queen, and then their life is over. A remarkable case of convergent evolution with humans.

When the time is right (which seems to be now, to Tanya's chagrin), all sausage flies leave their colony for the nuptial flight, to found or fertilize (depending on whom you are listening to) another colony.

Of course, Islam knows how to deal with these apostates:


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