Alex Wild
awild
Posts by this author
June 9, 2009
You might recall how much I dislike DNA barcoding.
So you can imagine my frustration when, in spite of my best efforts to mount an empirical demonstration of what a waste of time it is, the technique turns out to be extraordinarily useful. I've been processing sequence data all day from the…
June 9, 2009
Josh King writes in with the following:
Subject: Arthropod specimens available for analysis from large experiments in long-leaf pine forests.
We have material from 8100 pitfalls available for anyone (including enterprising students or post-docs) interested in studying the effect of disturbance or…
June 9, 2009
at the Washington Post:
This is the multi-generational public exhibition mentality at work: Every show should have something that makes each member of the family say wow. Ants fight, ants work, ants make things. Ants are just like us: "Text messaging is out, but they have other ways to communicate…
June 9, 2009
Aphaenogaster workers tasting the elaiosome of a bloodroot seed. Illinois.
Some plants have come to rely so heavily on ants to spread their seeds about that they offer the insects a tasty treat in exchange for the dispersal service. Seeds of these species bear a lipid-filled structure called an…
June 7, 2009
I sometimes get requests for stylistic pictures of dead ants. From pest control industry folks, usually. And I always have to beg off. Somehow, with my global image library of hundreds of different ant species, I've had nothing but live insects. Dead bugs never held much aesthetic appeal, I…
June 7, 2009
I saw this short video at a conference last year and was entranced. The clip shows how the ancestral arachnid body plan changed as it evolved through various descendant lineages.
June 6, 2009
Pyramica (or is it Strumigenys?) rostrata, Illinois
I've been thinking today about the Wikipedia edits to the Pyramica page, and my curiosity about the controversy prodded me to attempt a quick phylogenetic analysis. Before I get to the analysis, though, here is some background.
The Ants. …
June 5, 2009
Looking like a trilobite, or perhaps a mutant millipede, a heavily armored beetle larva crawls through the leaf litter in an Illinois forest.  This predaceous insect belongs to the family Lycidae Lampyridae, the net-winged beetles fireflies.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a…
June 4, 2009
In 2002 I took a shiny new Nikon Coolpix 995 on a research trip to Argentina and Paraguay. I'd not done much photography to that point, but it was tremendous fun. I spent nearly as much time shooting the region's charismatic ant fauna as I did working on my dissertation project. The resulting…
June 3, 2009
...to the quiz.
1. Myrmica fracticornis undescribed species
2. Tetramorium "sp. E." (formerly, T. caespitum)
3. Lasius neoniger
4. Tapinoma sessile
5. Myrmecina americana
6. Pheidole pilifera
Most of these were straightforward, but the Myrmica and the Lasius required as much luck as skill to pick…
May 31, 2009
The following ants are all found in my yard here in suburban Illinois. What are they?
#1
#2
#3
#4
#5
#6
I'll post answers on Tuesday. If you're lost, try here.
May 29, 2009
A new exhibit at the Smithsonian in Washington, D. C. opens this Saturday and runs through October. The displays will include a live leafcutter colony, photographs by Mark Moffett, and casts of real nests by Walter Tschinkel. Should be worth checking out if you're in the area. Details here.
May 29, 2009
Who says we can't have both beetles and Pheidole on Friday?
A South African Sap Beetle (Nitidulidae) reacts to a swarm of Pheidole megacephala by retracting its legs and antennae, leaving little exposed but smooth chitin. The ants have difficulty finding anything their mandibles can grab, even…
May 28, 2009
Aptinoma antongil Fisher 2009
Brian Fisher has a paper out in Zootaxa this week describing a pair of new ant genera from Madagascar. Aptinoma and Ravavy are small ants in the subfamily dolichoderinae related to Tapinoma and Technomyrmex. Apparently, the backstory on these new ants is that…
May 28, 2009
A queen and worker Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, pose for a photograph near Córdoba, Argentina.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f13, flash diffused through tracing paper
May 26, 2009
Ectatomma brunneum, Argentina
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f13, flash diffused through tracing paper
May 25, 2009
My apologies for the lack of posts. Life and work are conspiring this week to make blogging difficult. In the meantime, here's what's new in ants on the internet:
Roberto Keller explains the clypeus.
PLoS One reports that ant-dispersed plant lineages diversify more rapidly than ant-free…
May 22, 2009
You may now follow the Myrmecos Blog on facebook, if that's your scene.
May 22, 2009
Astylus atromaculatus (Melyridae), Argentina
The spotted maize beetle Astylus atromaculatus is native to subtropical South America but has spread to warm regions in other parts of the world. In late summer, adults congregate on flowers to mate and feed on pollen.
photo details (all photos):…
May 20, 2009
I photographed this weird...sluggy thing, I guess you could say, in an ant nest in subtropical Argentina.Â
Ten points to the first person who picks what it is.
May 20, 2009
In California, the pesty ant that invaded our kitchen was the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile). In Tucson, we had South American rover ants (Brachymyrmex patagonicus). Here in Illinois, our kitchen ant is a native species, Tapinoma sessile. At any given moment we probably have two or three…
May 19, 2009
The summer insect season is upon us here in temperate North America, and with it comes the need for good identification guides.
Before I begin, a cautionary note. We have so many species on our continent that were we to create a bird-type guide that listed all the insects, with their ranges and…
May 19, 2009
I took my shiny new Canon 50D out for a spin this weekend, and along the railroad tracks I found a worthy myrmecological subject: Crematogaster feeding at the swollen nectaries of an Ailanthus Tree of Heaven. Ailanthus is an introduced Asian tree that's gone weedy across much of North America. …
May 18, 2009
It seems my barcoding rant from last week has caught the eye of Alex Smith of the University of Guelph. Alex is the force behind numerous DNA barcoding projects, including the pioneering study on Malagasy trap-jaw ants, and I have elevated his reply from the comments:
Hi Alex â happened by…
May 15, 2009
Pheidole rosae, major worker, Entre Rios, Argentina
At the nest entrance
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/13, flash diffused through tracing paper