awild | April 1, 2009and gives us a list of photography's advantages over specimen collection:
You donât need permits to take images.
You can take images of wildlife and people (you canât âcollectâ those!).
Storage of images takes a lot less room than storage of an insect collection.
It takes less time to prepare an image than a specimen (that may change as I get more sophisticated).
You can share images (I canât pin an insect specimen to my blog).
Photography makes you more observant.
Images of living organisms are more colorful and robust than faded, withered dead specimens.
You can record behaviors in a…
awild | March 31, 2009
Pampas grass against an Argentine sky. Córdoba.
Was Argentina fabulous? Yes. Am I exhausted after a sleepless overnight flight? Also.
I'll try to think of some things to write about the trip once I'm lucid. In the meantime I'd like to thank guest bloggers Scott and Eli for elevating the literary standards of the myrmecos blog during my absence.
photo details: Canon 17-40x wide angle lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 400, 1/400 sec, f/14, circular polarizing filter.
awild | March 28, 2009
Nemognatha Blister Beetle, California.
Some of the oddest blister beetles in western North America are in the genus Nemognatha. Their mouthparts have become elongate to form a proboscis- a common trait among other groups of insects- but rare among the beetles. They are commonly seen on flowers feeding on nectar.
Nemognatha with associated Notoxus beetles, Nevada.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS D60
ISO 100, 1/200 sec, f/13, flash diffused through tracing paper
awild | March 24, 2009
Procryptocerus mayri, Venezuela.
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
awild | March 22, 2009From the recent documentary Ants: Nature's Secret Power, a glimpse of how researchers study ant behavior in the lab:
awild | March 21, 2009
Omoglymmius, wrinkled bark beetle (Rhysodini). California.
Rhysodine beetles make their living feeding on slime molds under the bark of decaying trees . They are instantly recognizable from the grooves on their backs and from their distinctly moniliform (bead-like) antennae. The taxonomic placement of these insects is controversial, but genetic evidence suggests they are a highly specialized lineage of Carabidae, the ground beetles.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS D60
ISO 100, 1/200 sec, f/13, flash diffused through tracing paper
awild | March 17, 2009Since you're all being so well-behaved while I'm in the field, here's a new wallpaper for your 1680 x 1055 desktop:
awild | March 13, 2009
Lucidota atra, the black firefly. New York.
Not all fireflies luminesce. Lucidota atra is a day-flying species, common in eastern North America, with vestigial light-producing organs.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS D60
ISO 100, 1/200 sec, f/13, flash diffused through tracing paper
awild | March 6, 2009
Near Cruz de Eje, Argentina
Tomorrow I leave for three ant-filled weeks in northern Argentina. Don't despair, though, the Myrmecos Blog will not go into remission. Scott Powell will be taking the reins for the rest of the month, and Eli Sarnat will drop in once or twice to regale us with shocking-but-true ant adventures from the South Pacific. I've also pre-scheduled a few Friday Beetles and Sunday Movies.
We've got several goals for the expedition. First, Jo-anne and I are trying to get a better sense of the biology of the closest relatives of the Argentine ant Linepithema humile.…
awild | March 5, 2009This photo was ultimately rejected for a journal cover (it was the wrong shape!) but I shot it to accompany a research article that used museum specimens of midwestern bumblebees to compare current levels of genetic diversity with previous decades. Since this image won't appear in print anytime soon, I thought I'd share it here instead.
photo details: Canon 35mm f2.0 prime lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 200, 1/125 sec, f/5, indirect strobe
awild | March 4, 2009Achenbach, A., Foitzik, S. 2009. FIRST EVIDENCE FOR SLAVE REBELLION: ENSLAVED ANT WORKERS SYSTEMATICALLY KILL THE BROOD OF THEIR SOCIAL PARASITE PROTOMOGNATHUS AMERICANUS . Evolution, Online Early, doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00591.x
Abstract: During the process of coevolution, social parasites have evolved sophisticated strategies to exploit the brood care behavior of their social hosts. Slave-making ant queens invade host colonies and kill or eject all adult host ants. Host workers, which eclose from the remaining brood, are tricked into caring for the parasite brood. Due to their high…
awild | March 3, 2009We're a little bit hectic behind the scenes here at Myrmecos Blog. I seem to have recovered from the flu, finally, and that means a week of work catch up on. That, and I'm leaving for Argentina in a few days. It's a conspiracy of deadlines, so you'll have to bear with us while we work through it.
awild | February 28, 2009
Gnamptogenys mordax, Venezuela.
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
awild | February 28, 2009Those of you who were into ants in the early '90s might remember SimAnt, a simulation game where you control the decisions your ants make to steer a colony to dominance over a competing species in a suburban lawn.
The game is based, in part, on the optimality equations summarized in Oster & Wilson's 1978 text "Caste and Ecology in the Social Insects". The book lays out mathematical foundations for determining the investments a colony should place in workers, queens, and males in order to optimize Darwinian fitness over a range of ecological conditions. If you knew the equations,…
awild | February 27, 2009
Just a reminder. The infamous annual Insect Fear Film Festival (this year's theme: centipedes!) is happening tomorrow night on campus here in Urbana-Champaign.
More information:
http://www.life.uiuc.edu/entomology/egsa/ifff.html
awild | February 27, 2009
Trichodes ornatus, the ornate checkered beetle. California.
Don't let the pretty colors fool you. Trichodes ornatus, like many checkered beetles, is a fierce predator whose larvae attack the young of wood-boring insects.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS D60
ISO 100, 1/200 sec, f/13, flash diffused through tracing paper.