I don't know whether it applies to this particular Mr. Raspberry, but
we do have a lot of unusual last names adopted by freed slaves who did
not want to take the names of their former masters. My favorite was a
charming young woman who gave up Miss Birdsong for a much more boring
married name.
We have the so called Argentine ants here too. Almost all of the
native ants I saw as a boy are gone, displaced by the Argentines. I
was surprised to see a few large ants at the rural dark sky site of
our astronomy club recently. I realized it had been several years
since I had seen any. I don't know whether the little ones are able to
defeat the larger ones in battle or whether they just compete better
in the environment. Someone told me that they have multiple queens
which makes a colony eternal.
Winsor
Long Beach, California, USA
On May 21, 2008, at 3:40 PM, Andrew Fildes wrote:
> I wondered about the colour of them but it never occurred to me that
> they might be named after a Mr Raspberry!
> Gee you murkins have hilarious names.
> They sound a bit like the so-called Argentininan Ants we get here
> although more so - small and numerous and a nuisance rather than a
> biter (we have one called a Bulldog Ant that you don't even want to
> think about - an inch long, aggressive, bite like a jab with a red
> hot needle and they don't let go).
> The Argentinian Ant actually originates in Uraguay I believe - it is
> tiny, numerous and successful because nests are not particularly
> territorial and different colonies actually co-operate with each
> other rather than fighting. A nice example that co-operation is
> usually a better survival technique than competition, for those
> addicted to bad analogies.
> Andrew Fildes
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