ants
awild | September 3, 2009[brightcove vid=36652867001&exp3=25500650001&surl=http://c.brightcove.com/services&pubid=1138077173&w=300&h=225]
As if job prospects weren't already bad enough for myrmecologists, now we're competing with chimps.
At least they haven't figured out how to make pooters. Yet.
awild | September 2, 2009I'm forever apologizing for the lack of blog activity. Sorry. I know.
I owe my vast and loyal readership (Hi Mom!) an explantion. Behind the scenes here at Myrmecos Industries we are 90% done with a significant overhaul of the ant photo collection. Essentially, the content of myrmecos.net is moving to the galleries at www.alexanderwild.com, with a significant restructuring of the latter to accomodate an orders-of-magnitude increase in imagery.
The process involves a lot of time-intensive tasks like captioning and keywording, as well as retouching older photos and adding in completely…
awild | August 27, 2009Here's your chance!
Anheuser-Busch has invited consumers to pitch ideas for a Bud TV spot that will run during the Chinese New Year in February 2010, Advertising Age reported Wednesday.
The spots must feature ants, which have starred in A-B commercials during the Chinese New Year for the past decade.
From five finalists picked Tuesday, judges will name the grand winner, who collects a $14,637 cash prize and gets to help produce the ad.
awild | August 26, 2009
Pyramica clypeata
Urbana, Illinois
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
awild | August 20, 2009Biodiversity discovery continues apace. The past couple of weeks have seen not one, but TWO new myrmicine ant genera.
First, Shattuck described the Australian Austromorium:
Austromorium hetericki Shattuck 2009 - Australia
Then this morning, Fernández et al introduced a pretty little yellow ant from Brazil, Diaphoromyrma:
Diaphoromyrma sofiae Fernández et al 2009 - Brazil
Neither of these new ants show any unambiguous relationship to existing ant genera. But that's been the story with myrmicinae, even in the age of molecular systematics. The subfamily contains nearly half of all…
awild | August 19, 2009
In case you were wondering, ants turn out to be ambidextrous.
Instead of favoring one side or the other as we humans do with our hands, ants show no preference for working with either mandible. That's the conclusion of a new study by Cassill & Singh:
Abstract: The elongation and sharp teeth of ant mandibles are considered important adaptations that have contributed to ants successful colonization of terrestrial habitats worldwide. In extant ant species, mandibles function as hunting and defense weapons, as well as multipurpose tools for excavating soil, cutting leaves, capturing and…
awild | August 12, 2009
Paratrechina longicornis
Florida
Their abdomens swollen with sugar water, two black crazy ants (Paratrechina longicornis) share a moment. This species has traveled around the globe with human commerce and is now common in warmers regions worldwide.
photo details: Canon mp-e 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 50D
ISO 100, f/13, 1/200 sec, indirect strobe in a white box
edyong | August 12, 2009In a French laboratory, a team of ants is attempting a daring rescue. One of their colony-mates is trapped in a snare - a nylon thread that dastardly researchers have looped around its waist and half-buried in some sand. Thankfully, help is at hand. A crack squad of rescuers work together to dig away at the sand, expose the snare, and bite at the threads until their colleague is liberated.
Many animals help each other but actual rescue attempts, even between individuals of the same species, are rarely documented. Among back-boned animals, dolphins are famously said to help injured comrades…
awild | August 10, 2009
Pogonomyrmex maricopa (at left) tussles with an Aphaenogaster albisetosa at the Aphaenogaster nest entrance.
While in Arizona, I chanced upon a set of ant fights that I'd observed several times previously. Single workers of the maricopa harvester ant Pogonomyrmex maricopa would approach a nest of their competitor, Aphaenogaster long-legged ants, and spend a few minutes drawing heat from the guards before wandering off.
Same thing, but different individuals (note differences in limb wounds from the previous photo)
The interaction is common enough that it really couldn't be just a chance…
awild | August 7, 2009A British film crew is in Arizona to film "Planet of the Ants," a National Geographic Television documentary about the picnic-spoiling arthropods.
The filmmakers, who shot in Phoenix and Tucson over the past couple of weeks, are now in the town of Portal, near the New Mexico border, until Wednesday, when they'll head back to England.
The leader of the crew, producer Martin Dohrn, director of the British production company Ammonite Ltd., said Arizona is a prime spot for ant filming."
More here, and my photo essay on the filming is here.
awild | August 5, 2009Doesn't "bigote" mean "moustache" in Spanish?
Why, yes. It does.
Pheidole bigote Longino 2009
Chiapas, Mexico
The inimitable Jack Longino published a taxonomic paper today on the Central American Pheidole, including descriptions of some 23 new species. Among these is the marvelously moustached P. bigote. The function of the fantastic facial hair remains unknown.
source: Longino, J. T. 2009. Additions to the taxonomy of New World Pheidole (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Zootaxa 2181: 1-90.Â
awild | August 5, 2009
Here's a novel use for an ant photo. German designer Beat Hintermann induced a party of wedding guests to individually color in squares from one of my images of fighting Odontomachus. The pieces were then assembled as a gift to the happy couple. Both, I'm told, study the aggressive interactions of ants.
Love can arise in the oddest of circumstances.
awild | August 4, 2009Here's an image for the textbooks:
Ants, like butterflies, pass through egg, larva, and pupa phases on their way to adulthood. While in Florida earlier in this summer I found a nest of the twig ant Pseudomyrmex gracilis with brood present in all stages, providing the material to make these images.
The key was placing the developing ants on a glass slide. This provided distance between them and the cardboard background, so that the backdrop is blurred while the insects remain in sharp focus. These images are not what I'd call fine art, but I'm happy with them as solid illustrations of ant…
awild | August 3, 2009
Swooping from the top of a saguaro down to the desert floor: Howard Bourne swings the crane while Martin Dohrn drives the camera. Tucson Mountain Park.
What was I doing in Arizona last month?
Thanks for asking. I was helping a film crew wrangle harvester ants for an upcoming National Geographic documentary. The crew, an all-star cast of nature cinematographers including Martin Dohrn, Howard Bourne, and Gavin Thurston, is still in the field- you can follow their progress by blog. The program is tentatively titled "Planet of the Ants" and should be on television in 2010.
If there's one…
awild | August 3, 2009Myrmician, whose lovely aussie ant photos have been livening up the pages of Flickr, has started a blog. Go read!
edyong | July 31, 2009This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science.
An ant nest is sheltered, well defended and stocked with food, but one that takes time to build and protect. That's why some species of ants don't bother to do it themselves - they just squat in the nests of others.
These ants are 'social parasites' - they don't feed off their hosts' tissues, but instead steal their food, sleep in their homes and use their resources. They're like six-legged cuckoos
An ant colony is too dangerous a target to victimise lightly and the social parasites use several…
grrlscientist | July 30, 2009tags: biodiversity, conservation, endangered species, Encyclopedia of Life, TEDTalks, E.O. Wilson, streaming video
As E.O. Wilson accepts his 2007 TEDTalks Prize, he makes a plea on behalf of all creatures that we learn more about our biosphere -- and build a networked encyclopedia of all the world's knowledge about life [24:22]
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.
awild | July 13, 2009The folks at the wildlife film company Ammonite are gearing up to do a documentary about ants and are looking for a few good stories about fire ants. Here's the announcement:
We are looking at is the growing success of the non-native (Exotic) Fire Ant (Solenopsis invicta). We'd like to hear from people who live, (or once lived) in an area with a significant fire ant population.
Have you been affected by these ants?
Do you have any strong feelings about them?
If you have anything to say on the subject please send an email to info@ammonite.co.uk with Fire Ants in the subject box
bleimanb | July 11, 2009A new study in one of our favorite bathroom reading publications, Insectes Sociaux, has revealed that ants are indeed taking over the world and our role as ants' masters will soon be upended. The group looked at a species of Argentinian ant, Linepithema humile, that has hitchhiked to other continents in the last century or so on human vessels (ships, planes, etc.) to form invasive colonies. Previously, scientists had examined the relationship between these different colonies within countries and continents. When Linepithema humile from different colonies come into contact in Argentina, they…
awild | July 10, 2009No, I haven't forgotten you all. We're still busy moving to the new house. Blogging will remain slow until we get the internet connected, and given the way that AT&T has managed to botch just about everything else so far I don't know if that will happen any time soon. (There's really nothing like the sluggish, incompetent service that AT&T provides. But, at least it's overpriced.)
If you need an ant fix, click on this for a slide show of Pogonomyrmex harvester ants.
Click me.