Alex Wild
awild
Posts by this author
A comment left on this blog last week alerted me to the sublime glasswork of artist Wesley Fleming. Wow. Not only are the pieces aesthetically stunning, they are also largely anatomically accurate. Legs attached to the right spots, tarsal segments counted out, tibial spurs in place.…
I've never understood the controversy over the Superorganism concept. It isn't as though organisms themselves are all that clear-cut, especially when considering oddities like social amoebas and lichens.
photo details: Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon EOS D60
ISO 400, 1/10 sec, f/2.8
Solenopsis geminata, the tropical fire ant
The latest upload concerns three species in the subfamily myrmicinae that have been traveling about the globe with human commerce. Solenopsis geminata, the tropical fire ant, is the most worrying of these tramps, but the other two, Pheidole…
If you're wondering why I've been posting more than usual the last couple days, it's because I'm home with the flu. When wrapped in blankets and doped up on Sudafed it's a lot easier to futz around on the internet than attempt any actual work.
It turns out that flu levels are at their…
What's new in ant science this week? Lots.
Atopomyrmex mocquerysi, South Africa
Myrmecological News has posted a pair of studies online. The first, by Martin Kenne et al, observe the natural history of one of Africa's most conspicuous yet chronically understudied arboreal ants, Atopomyrmex…
Stenamma sp., California.
This request comes from Michael Branstetter:
I am working on a broad-scale phylogeny of the ant genus Stenamma and am in search of fresh specimens from the Old World. Stenamma is a cryptic genus that is most often collected in forest leaf litter. The genus…
From my inbox, a postdoctoral job announcement:
The Department of Botany, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia seeks to appoint a Postdoctoral Fellow to conduct research in Invasion Biology on Christmas Island. Over the last decade, supercolonies of the invasive yellow crazy ant…
I've created a set of desktop wallpapers to fit the newer 1680 x 1050 widescreen monitors. To put any of the following on your desktop, click on the image. Once the large version loads to your browser, right-click and select "Set as desktop background."
The port at Mobile, Alabama, photographed from across the bay.
The port city of Mobile, Alabama holds special significance for students of ant science. Jo-anne and I took a weekend trip down to the gulf coast in January, and as we are both myrmecologists we felt compelled to stop and take…
Chrysina lecontei, Arizona.
Jewel scarabs emerge during Arizona's summer monsoon, and collectors from around the world descend on the region with their blacklights and mercury vapor lamps to attract the beetles. Chrysina lecontei is the smallest and rarest of the three Arizona species.
Chrysina…
A query from the inbox:
Hi, my question is regarding the gender of the worker ants (and the ant queen). As we all know; they are female, however was this discovered many centuries ago or is this a recent discovery?
I plead ignorance. I know apiculturists had figured out the sex of worker…
Leptomyrmex rufipes, the red-footed spider ant. Queensland, Australia.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS D60
ISO 100, 1/200 sec, f/11, flash diffused through tracing paper
The Taliban Beetle, a specimen at the Naturhistorisches Museum Basel, Switzerland.
Meet the Taliban Beetle.
I took this picture in 2004 while visiting the collections at the Natural History Museum in Basel, Switzerland. For reasons I was unable to discern, a coleopterist working in the…
Pheidole dentata, older worker with larva.
A study out in pre-print by Muscedere, Willey, and Traniello in the journal Animal Behaviour finds little support for a long-held idea that worker ants change specializations to perform different types of work as they age. By creating colonies out…
Myrmecologist extraordinaire Mike Kaspari sends out the following call to arms:
I am working on a project with Jamie Gillooly examing how various life history traits scale in ant colonies. Specifically, we are testing the hypothesis that when total colony mass is used (instead of the mass…
Lasius (Acanthomyops) arizonicus with mealybug, Huachuca Mountains, Arizona.
Students of the North American myrmecofauna will undoubtedly recognize this ant. Pudgy, pleasingly orange in color, and smelling sweetly of citrus, the Citronella ant is an endearing creature.  This…
Who is supposed to read The Superorganism?
I can't really tell. While I'm enjoying Holldobler & Wilson's latest tome, I am perplexed at the book's target audience. The text switches between broadly anthropomorphic prose clearly aimed for a general audience and obtuse jargon…
Colliuris pensylvanica, long-necked ground beetle. Arizona.
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
Here's a sharper version:
Parasitic Cotesia wasp attacks a Manduca larva
The story itself is amazing. It's been known for some time that Ichneumonid and Braconid wasps inject circular strands of DNA- called polydnaviruses- into their host insects along with their eggs. This DNA is…
In honor of the old man's 200th, Myrmecos Blog is proud to feature Charles Darwin writing prophetically about the problems posed by social insects for his theory of natural selection.  The passage below is from the first edition of On the Origin of Species, and in it Darwin anticipates…
A few years ago I needed to image some ants for a short taxonomic paper. Lacking a decent specimen imaging system (like Entovision), I decided to snap the photos at home using my standard macro gear: a dSLR with the Canon MP-E lens. The images turned out fine and were published in…
There's been a debate simmering among Argentine Ant researchers about the difference between the ant's ecology in its native South America and in the introduced populations. The heart of the disagreement is this: is the introduced Argentine ant dominant because its biology changed…
I'm up for a busy day doing Scanning Electron Microscopy of some braconid wasps, so instead of enlightening you with my own witty repartée I'll direct you to the following:
Catalogue of Organisms brings on The Most Unbelievable Organisms Evah!
The New York Times has kicked into full Darwin…
Tenodera aridifolia, Arizona.
photo details: Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/14, indirect strobe in a white box
Simopelta sp. nr. pergandei, Venezuela
I've just started a project in collaboration with Daniel Kronauer, Jack Longino, and Andy Suarez to infer the phylogeny of species in the Neotropical ponerine genus Simopelta. If you happen to have any DNA-quality specimens of these unusual ants in…