Today began after breakfast at about 9 with a hike through the various forest patches on the property. Many new species of butterflies for the property were found, and an incredibly interesting ant species was found in some young laurels just outside of a forest patch. The ants build their colony out of what appears to be some sort of fungus, and they tend to scale bugs which they take out to the laurel to graze and guard the bugs and every inch of the laurel very aggressively. They have little satellite structures dotting the laurel that store different groups of scale bugs and contain no ant brood. After this at about 2:30 we went to a relatively undisturbed forest preserve nearby. It was a really interesting hike and everything was going well until I walked by a wasp colony and was stung several. That hurt quite a bit and was really startling. After this temporary setback we continued with the hike and saw lots of interesting animals and plants.We arrived back at the main house, and Debbie thankfully gave me Benadryl and Advil, which really helped. And now I must eat dinner.
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