Zeiss and I went all the way up to Nipton, CA and ended up finding some Myrmecocystus queens that were flying during the day. They looked like M. mimicus, but they might have been more than one species. These were flying right along Nipton Road in a sort of dry lake bed where all the water in the area accumulates during storms, so it was very muddy there.
We drove back down the 15 for a few minutes to Bailey Road where I found one Myrmecocystus mexicanus queen and a few more of what looked like M. mimicus.
At one point we were driving on the Hwy 95 and went through a really intense storm that I thought was about to wash us off the road once the flash floods hit. Driving through some of the washes almost stopped my truck, but we made it through. There was almost nobody behind us after that so I think they all got stopped. Then CHP passed us heading to the spot with their lights on. Maybe someone in a little car was stupid enough to try to make it through the deepest wash.
That was pretty much it for that trip. I was hoping to find more, but it wasn't too bad.
Right after that trip some really good storms went through Goffs and Nipton again, so I went back out, alone that time.
The most rain was actually right on Goffs, so I drove their first. When I arrived in Fenner I found Goffs Road closed due to a train derailment in Ibis because of the storms. I was pretty pissed but remembered there was another road called Mountain Springs Road that lead into Goffs. I always thought it was a private road the previous times I was there, but realized later it wasn't. I thought for sure it would be closed too, but to my surprise it wasn't. I knew it was a pretty crappy road, and after the storms they just had, I wasn't sure what to expect, especially driving it at night. It actually wasn't bad at all. A few times I thought it was closed, but they were just barriers warning me about spots where the road was gone.
Here's some daytime pictures of the road where it was almost completely gone.
Here you can see Goffs in the far distance.
Zoomed in, you can see what a giant city Goffs is.
Here I spotted the biggest lizard I've ever seen in the wild. It was sunbathing on top of that giant rock. I think it was either a Desert Iguana or a Chuckwalla. I tried to get better pictures, but I couldn't get very close to it before it ran away, only to return right back to its spot as soon as I would get back in my truck. Maybe someone who is more familiar with these can ID it.
This rabbit craps in weird places.
A train heading into Goffs.
Here is Downtown Goffs. As you can see it's a pretty wild place. The night life here can get a bit crazy at times.
My Predictions for mating flights were pretty good. While here I collected queens of Novomessor cockerelli, Myrmecocystus mexicanus, Pogonomyrmex rugosus, and Camponotus fragilis. All but the M. mexicanus were caught running around at night. Most of the M. mexicanus were dug from founding chambers the next day. I found most of them farther up in the hills along Mountain Springs Road.
After Goffs, I drove up to Nipton again. I went to Bailey Road again where I dug up a few more M. mexicanus queens, so it seems they might have flown again after more rain fell.
Later in the evening, at the same spot Zeiss and I found the Myrmecocystus, I found what I think are Pogonomyrmex maricopa flying. I stayed and collected them until a storm started moving in. There were storms all around me with an insane amount of lightning, so I was getting a little nervous.
This is a picture of Nipton Road right at sunset, just before all the storms started to form, mostly over the Las Vegas area.
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On the way back I drove directly through a couple of those storms and it was pretty scary. The lightning was directly over the top of me, coming down to the ground all around me.
I got a lot of queens, so it was a pretty good trip.
Man, i hate to rebring up this older post, but my god, how beautiful. You guys are about to make me pack my crap and move.