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The Republican Party speaks: GOP senators on Tuesday highlighted âpure wasteâ in the billions of stimulus funds spent this year, including money for fossil research in Argentina, puppet shows and to protect cruise ships from terrorist attacks... What does the Republican Party consider wasteful?…

Formica integroides wood ants tending pine aphids (California, USA) Photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS D60. ISO 100, f/13, 1/200 sec, twin flash diffused through tracing paper

The annual Entomological Society of America meeting is next week (Dec 13-16) in Indianapolis.  I'm giving two presentations- one on Pheidole and one on Heterospilus- that the sadistic conference organizers scheduled for the very last day when no one is around.   So if you are…

I dare you not to get this Sesame Street classic stuck in your head.

Oddly enough, a photograph I took in 2007 has been chosen as one of Popular Science's 2009 "The Year's Most Amazing Scientific Images" (I'm #34 in the gallery).  I guess that's because the image wasn't widely distributed until the NY Times picked it up earlier this year.  Not that I'm…

Pogonomyrmex micans, stack of 23 images using CombineZP. Click for large file. I don't ordinarily do product endorsements on the blog, but here's one: the image-stacking software CombineZP. I recommend it for two reasons.  First, CombineZP produces smoother, more artifact-free images than…

Trox - Hide Beetle - Arizona, USA Scarab's shrewd cousin, Elytra warty like hide. Must be Trogidae! Photo details: Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D ISO 100, f/16, 1/250 sec, indirect strobe in white box

Here's an issue that's been on my mind as I'm shuffling trees around from several concurrent phylogenetic projects. The primary output from phylogenetics programs is tree diagrams depicting the relationships among organisms.  Very clean, very crisp, very precise diagrams.  Precision isn…

Do any of you know what this little animal might be?  I honestly have no idea, and rather than look it up I thought I'd crowd-source it to you folks first. It was lurking on the underside of a leaf at the Archbold Biological Station in Florida along the shores of a sinkhole lake.  This…

Cephalotes grandinosus, an herbivorous ant Why are there so many ants? This is a more perplexing question than it may seem.  At first glance ants are predators and scavengers.  Yet predators should be few in number, balanced on a narrow trophic peak and depending on high prey biomass…

Anochetus mayri Anochetus mayri is an ant most North American myrmecologists will not have encountered in the field.  This toothy exotic is a small brown insect, less than half a centimeter long, known in the United States only from scattered locations in suburban Florida.  I…

The definitive muppet version:

November 2009 edition. The fearsome mountain lion surveys his domain from the cliffs. To the rafters! Just try to come get me. Charming at dinner parties. Sitting on the favorite spot on the favorite rug.

Myrmecos Blog appeared online two years ago today.   While I'm obviously the guy writing most of the posts, the reason we're still on the air isn't me and my bloviating.  It is all of you guys- the readers, the guest bloggers, the commentators. Without the life provided to the site by…

Notoxus desertus - Antlike Flower Beetle Pyramid Lake, Nevada This furry little beetle comes with its own sun visor, a horn-like structure that projects over the head from the pronotum.  I photographed this Notoxus along the shores of Pyramid Lake where it was feeding on pollen. Photo…

Now stop playing around on the internet and go spend some time with your friends and family.

Belostoma sp. water bug, Illinois I'm so used to taking photos of fast-moving ants and beetles that a sedentary insect comes as something of a relief.  Instead, the challenge with this Belostoma giant water bug was lighting the shot. Aquariums are prone to reflections and dust on the glass.…

Azteca instabilis, Guatemala An urgent bleg to Myrmecos readers: If you have recent collections of Azteca ants suitable for molecular work, and you can mail them out within the week, please consider sending me any samples you can spare.  I'd be especially grateful for species like Azteca…

from the BBC's Weird Nature

Sericomyrmex ants in a laboratory fungus garden The textbook version of the leafcutter ant and its fungus is a simple story: attine ants cultivate an edible fungus in their nests.  They are obligate farmers, eating only the fungus, and the fungus is a specialized cultivar found only in ant…

Chauliognathus pennsylvanicus Goldenrod Soldier Beetles Illinois, USA Here at Myrmecos Blog we aim for a family-friendly atmosphere.  Except for beetle sex.  Sometimes we just can't resist. (There's also plant sex going on here too, if you're into that sort of thing...) Photo details:…

The chaotic evolution of colony size in ants.  (Tree re-analyzed from Brady et al 2006, colony data taken from Hoelldobler & Wilson 1990 and other sources) This tree depicts how colony size evolves in ants.  The purple/blue colors represent small colonies with only a few to a few…

Andy Deans of NCSU rightly rakes ASU over the coals for their Ugly Bugs contest: Denigrating insect species, broadly labeled here as bugs does a disservice to those of us who fight daily to convince a skeptical public...

I've had several people ask me recently where to focus when taking insect photos.  Here's my advice. Aim for the eyes. Compare: A phorid fly sits atop a fungus, its compound eye slightly ahead of the focal plane. The same fly with its eye in the focal plane. The second photo should be…

from an interview with Survivor contestant Kelly Sharbaugh: When your name showed up, you looked flabbergasted, shocked, dumbfounded. All of the above. I had no idea that Russell had the idol. When [host Jeff Probst] said my name, I was like. âWhat just happened? What did I do?â I was so emotional…

Over at IB401, the entomology students are blogging faster than a swarm of locusts in a candy shop*: Caterpillars I have known Beetle's Threat to Baseball Ants on Stilts Pink Mantids! Keeping a Praying Mantis Fig Wasp Beats Deforestation Hungry Crickets Drop by and leave them some comments! *or,…

Edrotes ventricosus (Tenebrionidae) - Dune Beetle California, USA In arid environments around the world, darkling beetles in the family Tenebrionidae are among the most prominent insects.  Their thick, waxy cuticles excel at retaining moisture.  Edrotes ventricosus is a dune inhabitant…

Ross Crozier last week at the Chicago Field Museum I learned this morning that pioneering ant biologist Ross Crozier has passed away.  This is terrible news, and entirely unexpected. Ross- a soft-spoken Australian- ushered social insects into the age of molecular biology.  He…