A parting gift

The forest gave me a parting gift last Thursday: winged aphids in an ant nest. In the nine years I have studied systems like this, I have never seen them before. And it has implications: these ant tended root-aphids would have a means to escape from ant nests as well as finding mates, things we thought were not possible for them. 

Today I struggled with the microscope camera, this was the best I could do. I put a scale bar in, I guess it fits with 'tiny tuesday' :) Thanks for hosting ~rainie!