Alex Wild
awild
Posts by this author
November 11, 2009
Solenopsis pergandei queen and workers
Archbold Biological Station, Florida, USA
Photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 50D
ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, diffused twin flash
November 10, 2009
An oversized tyrannosaur photo-bombs the Global Ant Project group portrait, November 5-7 2009 at the Chicago Field Museum (photo by Darolyn Striley).
Last week I attended a conference ambitiously titled "Global Ant Project synthesis meeting II". Partly, I went out of curiosity about what this "…
November 9, 2009
The following is a guest post from millipede expert Paul Marek.
The eerie glow of a Motyxia millipede (photo by P. Marek)
I study millipedes in the family Xystodesmidae (order Polydesmida). These millipedes contain hydrogen cyanide as a defensive chemical and use aposematic coloration to warn…
November 4, 2009
Sorry. I've been really, really busy with projects around the house and in the lab. And for the next few days I'll be away at the Global Ant Project meeting in Chicago.
Blogging will resume after I return. With any luck there will be plenty of myrmecological gossip and photos to share of the…
October 30, 2009
Tribolium castaneum, the Red Flour Beetle
Here's a beetle that the genetics-inclined entomologist will recognize. Tribolium castaneum, the red flour beetle, was the first Coleopteran to have its genome sequenced.
This small tenebrionid is native to the Indo-Australian region but has become a…
October 28, 2009
I'm busy today with lab work. But if you need an ant blog fix, let me point you in the direction of "Historias de Hormigas" ("Stories of Ants"). It's a Spanish blog by José MarÃa Gómez Durán, and the current entry is an amazing series of action shots documenting an ant-hunting Crabronid wasp.
October 27, 2009
A Solenopsis invicta queen attempts to escape a pair of tormentors
Life is perilous for young ant queens. This fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) is being pursued by native Forelius ants after her mating flight in central Florida. She frantically climbs a grass blade to escape, but to no avail- the…
October 25, 2009
from the always excellent Creature Comforts:
For those sensitive to meaningless violence against ants, you might want to look away around 5:20.
October 24, 2009
Last week was Open Access Week. At the risk of sounding like a stick-in-the-mud, let me play devil's advocate to the blogosphere's near-universal celebration of Open Access (abbreviated, OA). Thus: I don't think most OA advocates have thought deeply enough about long-term implications.
First,…
October 24, 2009
The students of IB 401: Introduction to Entomology here at UI have started a bug blog, and they've taken to it like...um... belostomatids to water.
Go pay them a visit and leave some comments.
October 23, 2009
Female (left) and male Sandalus niger Cicada Parasite Beetles
Sandalus niger is one of the oddest beetles in eastern North America. While most parasitic insects are concentrated in other orders- notably Hymenoptera and Diptera- Coleoptera contains relatively few parasites. But there are a few…
October 22, 2009
A sampling of face patterns in Polistes fuscatus paper wasps
Polistes fuscatus paper wasps sport a bewildering array of facial markings. Why is this?
A new paper by Michael Sheehan and Elizabeth Tibbetts in the journal Evolution suggests natural selection may favor rare patterns, leading to a…
October 22, 2009
Malcom Gladwell to aspiring journalists:
The issue is not writing. It's what you write about. One of my favorite columnists is Jonathan Weil, who writes for Bloomberg. He broke the Enron story, and he broke it because he's one of the very few mainstream journalists in America who really knows how…
October 21, 2009
Click to Gigapan this Linepithema ant head
Gigapan is a technology that stitches together hundreds of individual images to form a massive single image. It's hard to appreciate its power from just the small SEM image shown above, but if you click on the photo you'll be able to zoom to a…
October 21, 2009
Over at the Ant Farm Forum they're having another round of Name That Ant:
the mystery ant - photo by forum participant 'Harpegnathos'
Lodge your answer here.
While I'm on the topic of the Ant Farm Forum... The internet strikes me as a tremendous boon for ant enthusiasts. Anting is not one of…
October 19, 2009
Formica obscuripes
Trophallaxis- the social sharing of regurgitated liquids- is a fundamental behavior in the biology of most ant colonies. One ant approaches another, asks for a droplet of food, and if her partner is willing the two spend anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes in what…
October 18, 2009
This is one of the funniest things I've seen all week:
October 17, 2009
National Geographic remains the world's premier showcase of nature photography. But I often wonder for how much longer.
It is easy to maintain a virtual monopoly on high quality imagery when camera equipment and publishing are expensive and require a highly specialized skill set. But neither of…
October 16, 2009
Tetraponera merita Ward 2009, Madagascar
Tetraponera merita Ward 2009 is one of many aculeate species described in the pages of a new festschrift honoring Roy Snelling. I can't link to it, unfortunately, as the festschrift is printed the latest issue of the paper-only Journal of Hymenoptera…
October 16, 2009
In the past week:
Solenopsis invicta reaches Missouri
Wasmannia auropunctata reported on Maui
October 16, 2009
Scarites sp. Ground Beetle (Carabidae)
Urbana, Illinois
As the summer bug season freezes to a close here in Illinois, our attention turns increasingly to the cryptic habitats where insects settle in to overwinter. The flowers have faded, but insects can still be found under tree bark, in rotting…
October 15, 2009
It's Thursday night. Here's a tick:
Photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 50D
ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, flash diffused through tracing paper
October 15, 2009
Every year my part-time photography business does a little better than the year before. A few new clients, a few new venues, a few more visitors to my web sites. It's not a meteoric rise by any measure, but considering the current economic situation I am counting my blessings.
Naturally, of…
October 13, 2009
Male (left) and female Diapheromera femorata
Myrmecos blog commentators identified Sunday's mystery photo almost instantly as a stick insect laying an egg. The species is the Northern Walking Stick Diapheromera femorata, a common local insect easily collected by beating tree branches. We've…
October 12, 2009
Dipterist extraordinaire David Yeates writes:
If accepted, a recently proposed amendment to the ICZN allows for electronic publication of taxonomic names.... [T]he logical implications of this proposal are many and far reaching. For example, this change may lead to further advances so that…
October 11, 2009
Yeah, so I'm giving the Coca-Cola Corporation some free ad space. But it's a spectacular bit of animation, and they've paid a great deal of attention to getting the anatomical details right.