Alex Wild
awild
Posts by this author
May 14, 2008
Roy Snelling, 73; renowned entomologist was an expert on ants.
May 14, 2008
I've just received the following notice about an upcoming NOVA show on the life of biologist/myrmecologist E. O. Wilson:
NOVA is excited to partner with organizations that share our passion for scientific discovery as we spread the word about upcoming shows. On Tuesday, May 20, we invite you to…
May 13, 2008
Pheidole pegasus Sarnat 2008
Fiji
Eli Sarnat, the reigning expert on the Ants of Fiji, has just published a lovely taxonomic revision of a group of Pheidole that occur on the islands. Pheidole are found in warmer regions worldwide, but Fiji has seen a remarkable radiation of species that share a…
May 11, 2008
The visit of Australian friends a couple weeks ago provided an excuse to go photograph Arizona's most famous landmark. Appearances aside, the Grand Canyon is not an easy subject. Most shots appear flat in comparison to real-time views, failing to capture the canyon's immense depths or the…
May 11, 2008
Rose Aphids - Macrosiphum rosae
Tucson, Arizona
It's fair to say that without the encouragement of my mother, who allowed all manner of newts, snakes, caterpillars, tadpoles and ants into the house, I would not have gone on to become a biologist.
Thanks Mom, and happy mother's day!
photo details:…
May 9, 2008
Amphizoa insolens - trout stream beetle
California
Amphizoa are among the more enigmatic insects I've photographed. These dime-sized beetles are found only in the mountains of China and western North America, a disjunct distribution paralleled by a number of interesting taxa, including the giant…
May 5, 2008
Busy, busy, busy. In the meantime, there's always the "Blog" of Unnecessary Quotation Marks.
May 2, 2008
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds is another Aussie band that has made it into my regular rotation. Nick Cave was recently interviewed by Terry Gross, where we learn that his parentage includes a librarian and an English teacher. This may explain the sophistication of his lyrics. In any case, I like…
May 2, 2008
Distremocephalus - Phengodidae
Arizona
The beetle family Phengodidae is odd any way you look at it. The adult female (not pictured) is larviform, which means she never loses her grub-like appearance as she grows into sexual maturity. She has no wings and no long antennae. But she does…
April 30, 2008
Crypticerya bursera Unruh 2008
Baja California
Cory Unruh describes a new species of scale insect in the genus Crypticerya in this week's Zootaxa. The diagram above shows a highly stylized version of the back (at left) and underbelly (at right) of the insect, with peripheral illustrations of the…
April 29, 2008
If you're having trouble filling that bare wall over your desk, the Bohart Museum of Entomology has just the thing: a new line of insect posters. The invasive ant poster above was designed by Fran Keller from auto-montage images by Eli Sarnat, Jasmine Joseph, and Anna Lam.
April 27, 2008
Myrmecos.net is 5 years old. It has grown from a few dozen photographs to about 4,000, and in recent years 1,500 people visit the site every day. In spite of the site's high profile, myrmecos has not changed in any fundamental way since it first went online in 2003 (archived versions are…
April 26, 2008
Jo-anne has made a project of reorienting me towards a more Australian temperament. Her tactics are subtle but persistent. If I send her off to the video store, for instance, she comes home with some Aussie movie or another.
The most insidious of her methods includes buying CDs of Australian…
April 26, 2008
The New York Times has a piece on Ansel Adams.
Spot the fake smile!
Get your fix of Cicada Mania.
And finally...Polar Bear Tacos?
April 25, 2008
A few of the many species described by Roy Snelling:
Myrmecocystus tenuinodis Snelling 1976
Stenamma dyscheres Snelling 1973
Neivamyrmex wilsoni Snelling & Snelling 2007
April 24, 2008
Eusattus dilatatus - dune darkling beetle (Tenebrionidae)
California, USA
Sand dunes are an unusual habitat, and the creatures found on them are equally odd. One of the more charismatic dune endemics is Eusattus dilatatus, a large darkling beetle found in southern California. This scavenging…
April 23, 2008
Yesterday I received the sad news that Roy Snelling, one of the most significant figures in modern myrmecology, has passed on. He was on an expedition in Kenya and apparently suffered a heart attack in his sleep.
Roy's prolific career as a curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles…
April 22, 2008
Proceratium californicum
San Mateo Co., California
From Antweb:
This rarely collected ant is known from valley oak (Quercus lobata) riparian woodland in the Central Valley and from adjacent foothill localities (oak woodland; chaparral; grassland). It is presumed to be a specialist, subterranean…
April 21, 2008
Areolate
In 1979, Rick Harris wrote a definitive paper illustrating the various terms used by taxonomists to describe the intricate patterns on the insect exoskeleton. His guide is tremendously helpful to those of us who struggle to decide if those ridges on the head of an ant are strigate or…
April 20, 2008
Velvet ants- which aren't really ants at all- are wingless wasps that parasitize ground-nesting bees. They are attractive insects, bearing bright colors and cute frizzy hair. But in case you are ever tempted to pick up one of those cuddly-looking little guys, let the photo above serve as a…
April 18, 2008
Ben Stein's propaganda flick Expelled comes out today. Since other people have hashed the film to death, I won't write about Expelled except to make the following observation.
This is a graph showing the number of technical publications indexed in PubMed under the search terms "evolution" and…
April 18, 2008
Araeoschizus sp. Ant Beetle (Tenebrionidae)
California
Araeoschizus is a small genus of darkling beetle that both resembles ants and lives close to ant nests. It occurs in the arid western regions of North America. Not much is known about the nature of the association of these beetles with the…
April 17, 2008
While googling about for the latest CD by the Rustic Overtones (Light at the End), I discovered that copies of Shish Boom Bam are now selling for as high as $350. Shish is the crappy old recording from 1994 when I used to play trumpet with the band, back when R.O. were all rosy-cheeked teenagers…
April 17, 2008
Christopher Taylor gives an update on imminent closure of the Utrecht Herbarium, as well as further explanation why this is very, very bad.
April 15, 2008
Forelius mccooki (small ants) & Pogonomyrmex desertorum
Tucson, Arizona
In last August's National Geographic, photographer Mark Moffett has a controversial photo essay depicting a large, motionless harvester ant being worked over by smaller Dorymyrmex workers. Moffett's interpretation of the…
April 14, 2008
Daceton boltoni Azorsa & Sosa-Calvo 2008
Iquitos, Peru
If I had to make a list of the most beautiful ants in the world, the honey-colored trap-jaw ant Daceton armigerum would be near the top. Daceton is an unmistakable insect: large, graceful, spiny, with bulging eyes and a heart-shaped head…
April 14, 2008
I can't imagine a more unpleasant way to go. This poor oleander aphid (Aphis nerii) has its innards sucked out by a hoverfly larva.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon 20D
f/13, 1/250 sec, ISO 100
MT-24EX flash diffused through tracing paper
levels adjusted in Photoshop.
April 13, 2008
The Argentine Ant (Linepithema humile), a small brown ant about 2-3mm long, is one of the world's most damaging insects. This pernicious ant is spreading to warmer regions around the world from its natal habitat along South America's Paraná River. Linepithema humile can drive native arthropods…