The goal of The Backyard Biodiversity Project is to increase public interest and awareness about all the different types of organisms that exist in their own backyards. As part of this goal we are going to launch a new blog/newsletter called Interesting Insects: Removing the Ick Factor. We are going to feature one insect a week and provide information about the insect and why they are interesting and an important part of our world.

We will start with my personal favorite insect to talk about: The Argentine Ant. I will be talking about this particular ant a lot on this blog since it is such a huge part of our environment here in California. As the name suggests,  this is ant is originally from Argentina but can not be found in most areas here in California. These small little ants are so dominant here because despite their size they are very successful at fighting off larger native California ants, such as the carpenter ant.  Check out the photo below of these argies showing off their aggressiveness towards the larger Carpenter ant. 



Stay tuned for the next post where I'll go into detail about how they formed a successful super colony spanning most of California. 

If you'd like to receive a weekly Interesting Insect post in your email please subscribe to our email list!

We are going to start a blog titled "Removing the ick-factor." This is a blog dedicated to showing the public the amazing ways insects are a part of our world by removing them from a view of disgust to one of awe.