u/Halomonas_titanica

If all goes well, they should be ready around the end of September. Right in time for induction.

IMAGE 1
RMS Titanic leaves Belfast on April 2, reaches Berth 44 at Southampton from where her maiden voyage begins on april 10. She sails east of the Isle of Wight, then towards Cherbourg France.

IMAGE 2
She reaches Queenstown Ireland on April 11, goes past a few reference points along the Southern Irish coast, then starts a great circle route across the Atlantic.

IMAGE 3
Path across the North Atlantic. On 5:30pm of april 14, Titanic reaches The Corner, where she corrects her course into a straight line for NYC.

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The ships closest to the Titanic the night of the disaster. Both the initial coordinates, calculated by Officer Boxhall, and and the corrected coordinates later calculated by Capt.Smith, are off by several miles.

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Right after the collision with the iceberg, at 11:40pm, RMS Titanic proceeds north for a few miles. That's from attemtping to port around the iceberg. When the engines finally stop, the Labrador current pushes her back south.

IMAGE 6
Relative positions of the closest vessels. The white shaded area represents the approximate extent and location of the ice field.

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Positions of Cape Race and Titanic's sister ship, RMS Olympic, returning from NYC. It would've taken her a whole day to reach the Titanic.

This time I researched each ship's position more accurately and found out I was way off on some of them. Namely, on the previous version, the Olympic was way too close, and the Californian way too far. There could still be mistakes though - let me know if you find one. I want this to be as accurate as possible.

White shaded area in picture 4 represent sea ice on the night of the sinking

I've never had a calathea, and part of the reason for that is I've heard a lot about how fussy they are. But about two weeks ago I saw this absolute beauty at the plant nursery and I just couldn't leave it there.

It came with no tag, but based on some research, it should be a Calathea Stella. So I looked up care information on this subreddit and lots of conflicting informations came up: some say it requires more light than other calatheas, or more water, or less water, that is among the sturdier ones, that it's one of the fussiest ones... I'm so confused because I don't know who to believe.

Right now, it is next to a south window but out of the way of direct sunlight. I've only watered it once so far, with distilled water. I have no humidifier, but I'm in a seaside location, so ambient humidity naturally hovers between 45 and 70%.

The plant is pushing out many new shoots from the base, some new leaves as well, but the older ones have some blemishes at the edges. I'm sure most of those were already there when I purchased it though.

Sho I would like to ask you to peer review my Calathea (does it look ok?) and please leave some suggestions for better care.

Mi annoio, se vi va ditemi qual è l'oggetto più raro o umico di vostra proprietà e qual è la sua storia. Inizio io: un frammento di carbone recuperato dal relitto del Titanic

I am really excited about this update, you guys!

A few minutes ago, while I was doing my usual checkup and maintenance of the enclosure, I spotted this particular female resting near the comb as opposed to on it. That was the first thing I noticed. Not crazy unusual, but still noteworthy. The second thing I noticed was that her abdomen was swollen and plump compared to all other wasps. It is 10pm when that I'm typing this, hours after the last time they fed. So this can only mean one thing: you're looking at the first princess!!!

Leela's colony is becoming mature, it's finally reaching the stage at which it can now fulfill its one and only purpose: assuring legacy. As you can see from the second picture, most of the brood is now capped over, looking like a compact carpet of developing pupae. Food demand, which had grown considerably over the past few weeks, is now declining as there are fewer and fewer larvae left to raise.

As it usually goes, this moment was preceded by a wave of males. In fact, over a dozen of them, which are always chased off the nest by angry workers for stealing food from the larvae, and have been congregating in small groups at different spots of the enclosure. I release them gradually as I come across them, a few every evening. You can see a few of these excommunicated males in images 3 and 4. They're easily recognizable by the curly antennae, pale face and eyes, and an additional abdominal segment (one more stripe on their butt).

Back to the princess: I'm not sure if she's the only one or not, there are other wasps resting on the back I can't see very well. But what I am sure of is that many more will hatch in the coming days and weeks. Chances are, practically all current brood will turn out to be males and princesses.

The average productivity of a mature P.dominula colony is approximately a dozen princesses or so, but it's quite variable and can be seen as an exponential distribution, with a majority of colonies hatching zero or very few, and a lucky minority of colonies producing 50+. My colony is not particularly large, but I wouldn't call it small either, and it does have the advantage of being captive, which means lots of food and zero outside threats. So I can reasonably expect between 15 and 20 princesses.

The role of a princess, also referred to as a new queen, future foundress, or in scientific publications as a "gyne", is to carry the genetic legacy of her lineage into the next generation. They are programmed to fatten up, seek an unrelated male to mate with, hide out in a shelter to withstand winter -which will kill all other individuals- then wake up the following spring and start a new colony from scratch, just like Leela successfully did. Between competition for food, predators, parasites, adverse weather and just general bad luck, nature intended this task to be a hard one with a very high failure rate. Hence the need for mature colonies to produce as many princesses as possible before the end of the season.

The next link in a chain of queens that's millions of years long is being welded in as we speak. Leela's legacy lives on!

The colony is now at its production peak. Approximately 25 wasps are present, most of which are workers, but a growing number of individuals are males. I counted ten in total so far, but I release them as I find them because the workers will attack and chase them off the nest.

Building activity is down, and the rate of new cell construction has slowed to a near-halt as the nest approaches its final size. But hunting activity is ramping up fast and the workers are looking for prey all the time. Their appetite is absolutely ferocious. They take out about 20 mealworm pupae and 2/3 grasshoppers every day. Today I tried giving them a house cricket (Acheta domestica) and they refused it at first, but then devoured it completely. Which is a relief, because I can buy them in bulk as opposed to hunting for grasshoppers in some field in the summer heat. They'd eat even more if I didn't restrain their access to prey at least a little bit to prevent overfeeding.

With all this influx of protein, the brood is developing very quickly, and there are now approximately 40 pupal caps plus many larvae spinning new ones every night. This is the biggest brood the nest is going to produce, and also the last one, and it will be made of males and new queens. I think I already see two or three potential new queens, though it's hard to tell at this stage.

I'm including a few pictures of workers dismembering preys.

This tree gets trimmed back every spring, but somehow this year they decided to trim it in early winter. This means some of the flowers were able to be fertilized -presumably by wasps- and are now ripening into fruits.

The only other time I was lucky enough to find a poinsettia fruit was back in summer 2022. It contained three seeds, but only one looked viable. I planted in a pot and it started growing, but unfortunately it died off due to my inexperience and silly mistakes.

This time I will be prepared. I would love to get a poinsettia plant from seed. I want the wild type!!!

I just need to wait until these pods get ripe. Might take a few more weeks. There's at least four of them that I can see. Hopefully no one decides to trim this plant in the meantime.

It's been a few days since Leela passed away. I'm taking this chance to say thank you so much to everyone who commented, upvoted or even read the last post. It's really incredible the amount of love for Leela and her colony that I got. To think a little bug managed to make an entire community so interested in its life is really moving. Leela's body is currently resting on my bookshelf. I am planning to get her mounted on display with her nest later on.

In the meantime, her colony is marching on. There is no time for grieving. There are larvae to feed. The biggest and last generation this colony will ever produce is currently underway. At least four more males have hatched within the past couple of days, with many more to come. But most importantly, some of those larvae and pupae are going to develop into new queens.

Story time: back in 2018, a wild colony I was monitoring got burned by a wildfire, after which about 15 homeless wasps gathered on a tree branch near where their nest used to be. I collected the poor things and brought them home. Throughout the season, 3 of them aged like regular workers and died, but the other 12 turned out to be new queens: they were very shy, gained considerable weight, always sat clustered in a corner without moving much, had no instinct to attack when bothered, were very attractive to males, and they went dormant in winter and survived until the following spring, when I released most of them. I did retain a couple for my 2019 wasp-keeping season. Anyway, the exact date on which I collected those wasps was on July 7th, which is tomorrow. Thanks to this observation and similar others, I now know that new queens in a P.dominula colony can hatch as early as the first few days of July, which is incredibly early compared to most other wasp species, which tend to send off queens around September or October, at least here in southern Italy. This is not news, O.dominula does have a short nesting cycle which I believe is an adaptation to prevent competition. It also means there might already be a couple of new queens on my nest right now!!! In fact, I've already spotted at least a couple of freshly hatched females which might be queens. But it's hard to tell right now. If they fatten up and start clustering lazily on the back of the comb, hiding away from threats as opposed to attacking, then I will be certain that they're new queens.

The colony is still sustaining itself on mealworm pupae and honey. But I want to introduce some variety in their diet to improve brood quality. So first thing tomorrow I'll go out and catch a couple of grasshoppers for them to hunt.

That's all for now, folks! As always, thank you so much for reading this entire thing.

Balearic toad - southern Italy

I'm very proud of this one in particular, since It's my first successful propagation. It's growing in a treelike shape, which I love. Regular fertilization is allowing me to delay repotting. I will have to at some point, but right now it seems content.

It's with immense sorrow that I inform you that the queen of the purple colony, Leela, has passed away today. Her body was found at the bottom of the cage, surrounded by ants.

Numerous studies and my own past experience suggest that the average life expectancy of a P.dominula queen once workers have appeared is approximately a month. And this is exactly how long it's been since Leela had her first workers, so her death is most likely natural (old age).

Leela has successfully carried out her duty on earth, preserving her ancestors' bloodline through the winter, starting a gorgeous colony in the spring, and making sure there will be a next generation. She left many eggs, some of which will undoubtedly develop into the next generation of queens under the lovely care of her army of workers.

Thank you all for following her story and for all the amazing comments you left under every post. My posts won't stop. I will keep updating you guys for as long as Leela's colony remains active.

Farmed European paper wasps

Italy

Here are some updates on Leela and her fast-developing colony.

Pictures 1 and 2 is what the nest looks like now. They keep preferring the purple paper, but are incorporating some red and a bit of green. Current population is approximately 15 adults.

Picture 3 is a worker butchering a mealworm pupa on the prey trey. Since there are more and more mouths to feed, the workers are taking out eight to ten pupae per day and that's just because I stop refilling them at some point. They'd gladly take more if they could, but I'd rather limit the amount of food available to prevent overfeeding and reproduce more natural conditions - they wouldn't even get half this amount of protein in the wild.

Picture 4 is Leela herself, as clearly recognizable by the missing antenna and pink mark on her thorax. This picture was taken during one of her few trips outside the nest. Even though she's stopped gathering resources weeks ago, she still likes having some time for herself away from family chaos from time to time. Totally relatable tbh. Aging is really starting to show on her. She's not as sharp and reactive as she used to be. Her grip over the small society is weakening, just today I saw a worker laying an egg! (Cue shocked noises)

Picture 5 is a male. The colony has officially started male production. Most of the developing brood from now on will be represented by males. So far, I've counted five, but two died. One hatched deformed, while another drowned in the water bowl. The three remaining males are being attacked by workers and chased off the nest, which is typical behavior in this stage: males are just a drain on the resources of a growing colony. I managed to catch and release two of them. One came back and perched on my window, allowing me to get this shot before flying off into the blue.

The start of male production is a sign that the colony is nearing its peak. P.dominula has a rather short nesting cycle, spanning a bit less than five months on average. This is to prevent competition with other species which peak later in the season. Leela's colony is in the middle of its third month, meaning there's about six weeks to go before this little society dissolves. The latest weeks are also going to be the most interesting ones, because that's when new queens -the most important generation of all, as well as the entire point of Leela's existence- will make an appearance. But let's not get ahead of ourselves! Let's enjoy the journey, and thank you so much for reading this far.

This is a glitter poinsettia I've had since last year. It's one of my favorite varieties, but it's very prone to parasites. It had TONS of little greenish spider mites on the underleaves, giving it an ugly, spotty look, and stunting its growth. The plant was beginning to suffer, and I didn't know what to do because all commercially available products (Neem oil, insecticidal soap...) have the terrible side effect of burning all leaves to a crisp. The plant survives and grows back, but it's incredibly stressful and traumatic.

So yesterday I was absolutely fed up with these stupid mites and took a spray bottle, filled it with water, poured a couple of tablespoons worth of rubbing alcohol, a bit of soap, shook vigorously and began the war. I first covered the base of the plant with some newspaper and duct tape so as not to poison the soil. Then I absolutely drenched the shit out of every branch and leaf for a good five minutes, and watched gleefully as the mites dissolved off the plant and went down the drain. I must've used up half a gallon of it. I then sprayed the plant throughly with plain water to remove any residues, and left it to dry in a shaded location for a day.

Now, 24 hours later, there is absolutely no trace of the mites whatsoever, and the great news is that the leaves don't look damaged or burned at all!

So this was a complete success. I am now going to repeat the process with my three other plants. Then I'll let a week or so pass, and drench them all again just to be on the safe side.

I was away for five days, leaving to my mom the task of feeding them. I come back to this. Wow. Just wow. Not only has the population more than doubled, but the nest is looking fabulous from all the red and purple paper that they added! Leela should be proud of her little empire, and I'm sure she is.

As anticipated, a few males have hatched. One was expelled from the colony and is lying in a corner. I'll separate him first thing tomorrow.

Their favorite source or fibers now seems to be a piece of purple construction paper. One side of this paper is corrugated, as opposed to both sides being smooth like in all other pieces. That is likely to play a role.

I was hoping they'd collect more from the red paper, but a mostly purple nest does look absolutely stunning too! The alternation of different colors allows me to tell how fast construction activity is on a day to day basis.

I am going out of town tomorrow, leaving their care to my mother (I'm preparing a few rations for her to administer daily). This means the next update won't be for another week or so.

Current population: eight adults (Leela + seven workers). Lots of pupal caps that will be hatching new workers soon. Large, dome-shaped caps seem typical of males, meaning the colony is gradually beginning to transition to the next step in its cycle: mass male production. After that, they'll raise some new queens, then the colony will decline. But that won't be for another couple of months.

They are mainly collecting from yellow, blue and mint green sheets. I am going to add red, orange, purple and green.

They're mostly working with red (it's a washed out red that appears pink), some light blue and some yellow. I'm planning to add more colors.