Who was that dashing ant of mystery and intrigue?
Tetramorium simillimum is a small myrmicine that has tramped around the globe with human commerce, quietly inserting itself into native ecosystems. Like most insect species, little is known about its behavior or its interactions with other species.
JasonC gets a clean sweep: ten points for correctly guessing the genus and species.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Influenza is primarily a disease of birds. Most emerging infectious diseases in humans are started out as diseases of animals, what are called zoonoses. We worry about zoonoses for that reason. It is one of the hardwired tendencies of any species to think of their own survival first -- that's…
tags: purple frog, Suriname, amphibians, Atelopus
A purple fluorescent frog of the genus Atelopus was discovered during a follow-up survey of the Nassau plateau in mid 2006 by Surinamese scientists Paul Ouboter and Jan Mol. The frog is one of 24 new species found in the South American highlands…
tags: ecology, exotic species, introduced species, non-native species, invasive species, monk parakeets, quaker parrots, Myiopsitta monachus, Michael A Russello, Michael L Avery, Timothy F Wright
Monk (Quaker) parakeets, Myiopsitta monachus, with nest.
Image: Arthur Grosset [larger view].…
August 13th was Earth Overshoot Day. The correct date, if calculated precisely, would come earlier and earlier each year, the current choice is just an approximation.
This year, the year 2015, by sometime around August 13th, humanity had consumed as much of what we require from the lands and seas…
Just curious... how did you know it was T. simillimum and not T. caldarium?
http://keys.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/PIAkey/Fact_Sheets/Tetramorium_sim…
An excellent question, Jason. If you look at Chart2 on this page you'll see some differences in head shape and petiole shape.
Of course, it's hard to tell from my photos which of the two it is- I was able to compare specimens under a microscope to confirm the ID. In that respect, this was something of a trick question- you had a 50/50 chance of getting it right.