ants
awild | February 28, 2008
Ectatomma parasiticum Feitosa & Fresneau 2008
Mexico
In today's Zootaxa, Feitosa et al describe a workerless social parasite in the ant genus Ectatomma. Like many discoveries, this one was fortuitous. The authors were collecting nests of the common Ectatomma tuberculatum when they noticed that some nests had a number of rather small queens in them. Genetic tests revealed them to be distinct.
Ectatomma parasiticum is a social parasite, using the labor of the host ants to raise more parasites. Although a similarly parasitic lifestyle is known to occur in other ant subfamilies, this…
awild | February 28, 2008http://plazi.org/
Donat Agosti's group has launched Plazi, a set of tools that translates flat paper taxonomy into dynamic web content. This technology is significant: it means the content of old literature can be extracted automatically into databases. Taxonomic names are tracked and linked to external information, and collecting locations are linked to maps. This will be a valuable time-saver for taxonomic research.
As an example, my doctoral thesis was a fairly traditional piece of work: a book length taxonomic revision, all done in flat text on a word processor. Plazi has turned it…
awild | February 27, 2008
Meet Ectatomma tuberculatum. This tropical insect has the largest genome of 40 species of ants measured in a study by Neil Tsutsui et al in BioMed Central. Weighing in at 690 megabases, E. tuberculatum has nearly twice as much DNA as most other ant species, leading the authors to suggest that a whole genome duplication occurred somewhere in the line of Ectatommine ancestry.
Tsutsui et al's study, released today, is the first comprehensive genomic survey across ants. What's more, it is open access. You can read the whole thing here:
Evolution of Genome Size in Ants
Summary: Here, we…
awild | February 24, 2008
I've got a new series of Dinoponera photographs up at myrmecos.net. Click on the image above to see the gallery.
These giant black insects are the largest South American ants, and although there is at least one Asian Carpenter ant (Camponotus gigas) that's a bit bigger, Dinoponera weighs in as the world's largest stinging ant. They would seem to command a great deal of respect for such distinction, but in reality Dinoponera are rather shy animals.
Because these ants are so large- reaching over an inch long- they open up an array of photographic possibilities that can't easily be done with…
awild | February 19, 2008Â
Does ant activity cycle by an internal clock, or is their activity cycle a response to changing environmental cues?
A study in Insectes Sociaux weighs in on the side of environment. Penick & Tschinkel experimented with applying light and heat from different directions and at different times of day to fire ant mounds. It turns out that the ants' daily rhythm of moving their brood around the nest is a result of temperature tracking. I've pasted a link to the article and the abstract below.
Penick & Tschinkel. 2008. Thermoregulatory brood transport in the fire ant, Solenopsis…
awild | February 18, 2008The rise of microstock photography has many established photographers wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth over how microstock companies are destroying the business.
What is microstock? It is a relatively new internet-based business model that licenses existing images for scandalously low prices. Traditionally, images are licensed through highly selective stock agencies for amounts in the hundreds of dollars or so, but microstock turns everything upside-down, moving images for just pennies each. Microstock companies aren't choosy about the images they peddle, as they need vast…
awild | February 14, 2008The latest edition of the myrmecological newsletter is online here. It may well be the last, according to editor Gordon Snelling:
We have close to 200 members and I can count on two hands the people that have regularly supported Notes by sending in material for publication... I feel like I am banging my head on a wall at times and honestly I am losing the motivation to keep this going.
Notes from Underground has come and gone before. The printed newsletter was inaugurated in 1988 by Harvard…
awild | February 13, 2008
 Formica accreta, Northern California
I wish I could say I knew what these ants were doing. Hiding from the photographer, perhaps? Formica of the fusca species group are notoriously shy insects, but not all of these ones seemed to be equally spooked.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon D60.
f/13, 1/200 sec, ISO 100
Twin flash diffused through tracing paper.
Levels adjusted in Photoshop.
awild | February 11, 2008
Ant Course 2008 is scheduled for Venezuela this August. The Ant Course, now in its 8th year, gives students an introduction to myrmecology with a decidedly taxonomic focus. More than just an academic exercise, the course serves as a meeting place where newcomers can mingle with an all-star cast of instructors, a superb social networking medium for aspiring ant scientists.
Admission to the Ant Course is competitive, with double the number of applicants than seats. I have been on the admissions committee in past years, and though I can't speak for this year's course I can share what the…
awild | January 31, 2008
Lordomyrma vanua Lucky & Sarnat 2008
Fiji
image by A. Lucky & E. Sarnat
Last week's Zootaxa contained a excellent short paper by Andrea Lucky and Eli Sarnat describing a pair of new Lordomyrma species, including the beautiful L. vanua pictured above. As is true of most insects, Lordomyrma vanua remains a largely unknown quantity. It has been collected just twice, both times from the island of Vanua, in Fiji, for which it is named.
Source: Lucky, A. & E. M. Sarnat. 2008. New species of Lordomyrma (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Southeast Asia and Fiji. Zootaxa 1681: 37-46.
awild | January 31, 2008
We often think of ants as paragons of hard work, but a surprising number of species get by through mooching off the labor of others. Trachymyrmex fungus growers, the larger spiny ants pictured above, do things the old-fashioned way. They dig their own nests, send workers out to gather food, and meticulously cultivate the fungus garden that serves as the primary food source for the colony.
Then, along comes the slim, sneaky Megalomyrmex symmetochus. These little parasites hollow out a cozy little nest within the Trachymyrmex garden and spend their time leisurely consuming the brood of…
awild | January 26, 2008Finally, a solid taxonomy for the Australian Aphaenogaster:
Â
Shattuck, S. 2008. Australian ants of the genus Aphaenogaster (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Zootaxa 1677: 25-25.
ABSTRACT: The Australian species of the myrmicine ant genus Aphaenogaster Mayr are revised. Eight species are recognised, four of which are described as new. The species include barbara sp. n., barbigula Wheeler (for which a lectotype is designated), kimberleyensis sp. n., longiceps (Smith) (with its newly recognised synonym, flava Emery), mediterrae sp. n., poultoni Crawley, pythia Forel (for which a neotype is designated…
awild | January 25, 2008
Adranes ant-nest beetle
California
The most exciting finds are often the least expected. I stumbled across this odd little beetle while collecting ants several years ago in northern California. It was tiny, only a few millimeters long, with a little blind nubbin for a head whose sole purpose seemed to be supporting antennae that looked like a pair of cricket bats. The Lasius ants whose nest played host to this strange creature did not appear to pay it any particular attention. Ants are normally rather vicious towards interlopers, so their nonchalance often reveals successful infiltration by…
grrlscientist | January 23, 2008tags: ants, The Secret Megalopolis of the Ants, ant nest, streaming video
This is a video of scientists pouring ten tons of liquid concrete into an ant colony, waiting several weeks for it to set, then digging it up. In doing so, they learned that the structure covers 538 square feet and travels 26 feet into the earth. To build it, the ant colony moved 40 tons of soil -- billions of ant loads of soil were brought to the surface. Each load weighed four times as much as the worker ant, and in human terms, was carried over 1/2 mile to the surface. It's amazing what evolution can construct, don't…
awild | January 20, 2008So you like insects, but can't be bothered to get up from your computer to go look for some? Google earth to the rescue!
South of Tucson, Arizona (31°38.097'N 111°03.797'W) I found this lovely aerial image. Visualized from an elevation of about a kilometer and a half, it shows a hill just west of I-19 covered in freshly-sprouted grass. Except, there's this strange pattern of evenly-spaced polka-dots:
What could account for the speckles? Alien crop-circles? Bizarre gardening accidents?
Why no, those are the nest discs of one of our most conspicuous insects in the Sonoran desert, the red…
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.
bleimanb | January 18, 2008Just when Andrew and I decided once and for all that ants couldn't get any more delicious looking, along comes a new parasitic roundworm that turns our whole world on its head! The newly discovered nematode enters the ants when they eat bird droppings and causes their abdomens to resemble ripe, tasty berries. This in turn draws the attention of birds who love both berries and ants. The birds eat the ants, crap out the parasites, and the whole thing starts over again. Now we know what Elton John was talking about in that song in the Lion King!
Seriously though take a look at the picture below…
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…
bleimanb | January 9, 2008Why do some creatures forgo their own reproduction to help their relatives survive and reproduce? While we all might like to believe that naked mole rats really do care and are thus willing to sacrifice their creepy little lives for the good of the colony, the true answer probably has more to do with gene frequency across generations and evolution.
A scene from the 2003 ant remake of "Saving Private Ryan". Needless to say, it did not fare well at the box office.
Since the late 1950's, the idea of 'kin selection' has been the most widely accepted explanation for such bizarre behavior in…
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…