awild | January 18, 2008My review of myrmecologist Carl Rettenmeyer's DVD "Astonishing Army Ants" was published this morning in the journal Bioscience. Click below to read:
A Feast for the Initiated
The DVD runs about an hour and is available from armyantbiology.com.
awild | January 18, 2008
"I went out collecting with Albert Way of Trinity, who in after years became a well-known archaeologist; also with H. Thompson, afterwards a leading agriculturalist, chairman of a great railway, and a Member of Parliament. It seems therefore that a taste for collecting beetles is some indication of future success in life."
- Charles Darwin
Cactus Longhorn Beetle, Moneilema sp.
Tucson, Arizona
details: Canon 100mm macro lens on a Canon 20D
f/20, 1/2 sec, ISO 400
camera on tripod, natural light
levels adjusted in…
awild | January 17, 2008
Here's a story about a parasitic nematode that turns black ants into ripe red berries. What's this about?
The parasite needs to get its eggs from an infected ant to healthy ants. Apparently it hasn't been successful the old-fashioned way, just broadcasting its eggs about the environment. Instead, these little worms have figured out a far more effective egg delivery vehicle: birds.
Ants of the genus Cephalotes often feed from bird droppings (for instance, see here). If a parasitic egg can get itself into a bird's digestive system, it'll wind up in a juicy fecal pellet where it may be…
awild | January 14, 2008...we had to move across town this weekend. The new house is not yet configured for internet, so it may be a few days until I'm back on track. In the meantime, here are some links to keep you entertained:
Asian Myrmecology, a new ant journal! The first volume is open-access.
An ecological menage a trois between Ants, Plants, and... Elephants?
Friday Ark #173 at The Modulator
The Ants of Fiji can be found online at antweb.org.
awild | January 10, 2008
Mallophorina sp. - Robber Fly
Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona
details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon D60
f/13, 1/200 sec, ISO 100
Flash diffused through tracing paper
levels adjusted in Photoshop
awild | January 9, 2008People occasionally ask why I don't assign my photos a Creative Commons license. Dan Heller explains. And adds a horror story here.
The short of it is, while Creative Commons was established with the best of intentions it is easily abused in the photographic setting. Users unknowingly open themselves up to large legal risks, and I find photo licensing by traditional means to be both more secure and more professional.
awild | January 7, 2008
Common caricatures of Darwinian evolution evoke nature as a brutal force, one of ruthless competition in which the strongest prevail. In truth evolutionary processes can be much more nuanced. Under a wide array of conditions, species find Darwinian advantage in cooperative relationships.
Some of the most striking cases of evolutionary partnerships involve the planet's dominant primary producers, the plants, and the most abundant insects, the ants. Ants are exceptional predators, and several groups of plants have figured out that by housing and feeding resident ant colonies they gain a…
awild | January 4, 2008
In the comments, James Trager brings to our attention his recent synonymy of the venerable Formica nitidiventris with Formica pallidefulva. This is one of the most common ants, and in my opinion one of the prettiest, in eastern North America. Many of us from the east learned of this ubiquitous species incorrectly as F. nitidiventris, so the synonymy may take some getting used to. In any case, the name nitidiventris is sunk, so you'll only make yourself look obsolete if you persist in using it.
The Trager et al (2007) revision of the Formica pallidefulva group is excellent, by the way.…
awild | January 1, 2008Apparently, there are people on the internet willing to pay you to not kill the ants in your yard. The site "Adopt an Ant" explains:
Well my name is Tony and I have recently moved into my new home.
After moving in I have seen there is a large ants nest at the bottom of my garden. In this ants nest there are 1 million ants living there.
All the ants are happy go lucky ants with there own Unique personality,
The problem is the plan was to flag my back garden and this would destroy the nest and all the ants.
To save these Ants from DEATH please adopt an ant TODAY.
the money raised…
awild | December 31, 2007
This week the blogosphere is busy recapping 2007 with lists of top stories in politics, news, and celebrity haircuts. In all the hoopla surrounding year's end, somehow everyone seems to have forgotten the ants, even though the, um, fast-paced world of Myrmecology has made plenty of discoveries this year. In no particular order, here is my list of the most significant advances in Ant Science from 2007.
Argentine ants and Fire ants- two of the world's worst invasive species- keep each other in check in their common native range. The perennial mystery of invasive ants is why they are so…
awild | December 29, 2007Photos posted to myrmecos.net rarely go straight from the camera to the web. Through some combination of errors related to exposure and the innate properties of digital sensors, raw images can be a surprisingly poor match to what is seen through the viewfinder. Raw images are often relatively flat in appearance, with colors that are shifted or off-hue. For instance, Canon cameras by default impart a warm reddish hue to their files that is especially apparent in macrophotography. The nice thing about raw files, and indeed the main reason for using them, is that they are malleable enough to…
awild | December 27, 2007If you've got weevils to identify, patience is a virtue. At current rates of taxonomic description it'll only take 650 more years to name all the weevil species.
awild | December 23, 2007
Paraguay may be the world's most important country. Never mind that it is economically isolated and geopolitically forgettable. Rather, I measure importance by less trivial metrics, and by that of course I mean ants.
Paraguayan ants have changed the world. Many of the world's worst pest species evolved on the broad plains of the Paraná river before hitchhiking with human commerce to points abroad. The infamous fire ants in the southern U.S. originated on the Paraná, as did the Argentine Ants that plague California and Europe, along with a rogue's gallery of other trampy and invasive…
awild | December 21, 2007...reviewed by Phil Ward here:
Ward, P.S. 2007. Phylogeny, classification, and species-level taxonomy of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Zootaxa 1668: 549-563.
Abstract: The current state of ant systematics is reviewed. In recent years substantial progress has been made in identifying the major clades of ants and the relationships among them. Earlier inferences about ant phylogeny based on morphology have been refined and modified as a result of a recent influx of molecular (DNA sequence) data and new fossil discoveries. It is now apparent that much of the biological and taxonomic diversity…
awild | December 20, 2007
Trachymyrmex pomonae Rabeling & Cover 2007
Arizona
Nothing warms the heart more than a new ant species close to home! An all-star team of ant specialists, headed by Christian Rabeling at the University of Texas, describe the Arizonan species Trachymyrmex pomonae in Zootaxa this week. This spiny little red insect is part of a New World evolutionary radiation of agricultural ants, the attines, that cultivate a fungus in underground chambers. Trachymyrmex pomonae is one of several Trachymyrmex species in the United States, with dozens more occurring in Central and South America.
New…
awild | December 17, 2007An image search for one of my favorite ants, the Atta leafcutters, returns a jarring juxtaposition of terrorists and ants:
Google Search: "Atta"
awild | December 16, 2007
Nephila sp. Giant Silk Spider
Panama
details: Canon 100mm macro lens on a Canon 20D
f/2.8, 1/200 sec, ISO 400
handheld, natural light
levels adjusted in Photoshop
awild | December 15, 2007
Leafcutter ants are the most conspicuous insects in Central and South America. Every photographer who happens across their bustling trails seems to take pictures of them. The world really does not need any more photos of leafcutter ants, but I can't help myself. They're pretty. My latest attine indulgences can be viewed here:
New Photos at Myrmecos.net
awild | December 13, 2007Warning: long ranty post to follow.
Taxonomy is an unusual discipline in the balance it strikes between legal and scientific concepts. There's the obvious biology bit about discovering and defining taxa, but unlike any other science there's a backbone of legalistic code that regulates the dynamics of names. If you're the sort who really digs dry legal documents, you can read the zoological code here and the botanical code here. The codes are largely concerned with nomenclature, dealing with issues such as the proper hierarchy of ranks, and resolving conflict among competing names. For…