entomology

Juergen Heinze has a must-read piece in the latest edition of Myrmecological News about how ant colonies are not often simple families as we like to think of them: Abstract: The social systems of ants are far more variable than has traditionally been believed. In addition to variation in queen number and queen mating frequency, recent research has documented such bizarre phenomena as the parthenogenetic production of females from unfertilized eggs or genetic caste determination. All these affect the genetic structure of ant societies, and it appears that in a large percentage of species…
A perpetually happy Venezuelan Leptogenys We don't really know why some species of Leptogenys hunting ants sport a permanent grin. The oddly ecstatic mandible shape might, however, have something to do with handling the broadly curved exoskeleton of their preferred prey: isopods (the sow bugs and pill bugs). Flickr user "venwu225" recently uploaded a fantastic series of the related species L. falcigera in action. Some of the shots show how the mandibles allow the ant to grip the isopod both above and below its wide skirt of armor. Cool stuff. photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro…
On my recent visit to the coastal forests of Kwazulu-Natal I noticed basketball-like growths on many of the Acacia trees.  In North America, any large gray ball you see hanging off a tree branch is liable to be a hornet's nest.  In South America, it's probably a carton nest of fierce little Azteca ants. The equivalent in South Africa?  I didn't know. A little bit of poking around in the acacias revealed the culprit.  It was Crematogaster tricolor, an orange ant about half a centimeter long: They didn't appreciate the disturbance, apparently, because they came after me without…
I've always been fond of playful and irreverent scientific names, so imagine my delight when I discovered that Paul Marsh, the taxonomist I will be working with over the coming year, is the same Paul Marsh who brought us the classic wasp names Heerz tooya, Heerz lukenatcha, and Verae peculya. I'll be supporting Paul's morphological studies in the taxonomically troublesome wasp genus Heterospilus with molecular genetic data, but be warned. There are several hundred species yet to be named in the genus, and who knows what sort of nomenclatural mischief awaits.
Pelidnota punctata - Grapevine Beetle Champaign, Illinois Here it is: the first insect I've photographed since moving to Illinois last week.  I've been posting a lot of scarab beetles recently, but can you blame me?  They're so pretty. photo details: Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon 20D ISO 100, f/11, 1/200 sec, indirect strobe in white box.
Asphinctopone differens Bolton & Fisher 2008 A new species from the Central African Republic Bolton & Fisher Revise Asphinctopone (Zootaxa) Shattuck Revises the Indo-Pacific Prionopelta All imported Fire Ants in the U.S. are descended from 9-20 initial foundress queens [summary in ScienceDaily] ZooKeys: A new open-access journal for biodiversity & taxonomy
Euprenolepis procera (photo by Witte and Maschwitz) This is cool. A new paper by Volker Witte and Ulrich Maschwitz details a previously unknown behavior for ants: nomadic fungivory.  Here's the cite and the abstract: Witte, V. and U. Maschwitz. 2008. Mushroom harvesting ants in the topical rain forest. Naturwissenschaften, online early. Abstract: Ants belong to the most important groups of arthropods, inhabiting and commonly dominating most terrestrial habitats, especially tropical rainforests. Their highly collective behavior enables exploitation of various resources and is viewed as a key…
I am minutes away from shutting down this computer to pack it away for the long trip to Illinois tomorrow, but before I do that let me point out the New York Times' review of what may well be the most ambitious arthropod exhibit ever: The New Orleans Insectarium. If any of you have the opportunity to visit the Insectarium, drop me a line as to what you think.  I've not had the chance to see it, but I do have several photographs appearing in the displays and am curious about how they look.
Harpegnathos saltator - Jumping Ant I thought I would have to travel all the way to India (the horror!) to photograph one of the world's most charming insects, the jumping ant Harpegnathos saltator. But I recently learned that myrmecologist Juergen Liebig, a professor at Arizona State University, maintains dozens of captive colonies in his lab in Phoenix. Juergen studies these ants' rather unusual behavior. Unlike most ants that show a clear division between reproductive queens and sterile workers, Harpegnathos workers can mate and produce fertile offspring, leading to soap opera-style…
Oecophylla weaver ants are exceptionally cooperative subjects for photography, allowing for plenty of experimentation with lighting while the ants preen and pose. While developing the photographs from South Africa I discovered that strong backlighting allows a crystal-clear view of the tracheal system: Oecophylla longinoda, St. Lucia, KZN, South Africa The tracheae are visible as dark canals running through the body. These connect to the outside air in a series of circular spiracles and are essentially the lungs of the insect, channeling oxygen to the respiring cells and carrying away…
I've had a week to digest the International Congress of Entomology (ICE) meeting held earlier this month in Durban, South Africa. Thousands of diverse presentations happening in 15 parallel sessions cannot easily be summed up in a single blog post, so I'll stick to a few of my own impressions of the conference. First, the bad. Durban was a terrible location. Lovely beaches aside, the city was not safe. Several people were mugged outside their hotels, and there is nothing relaxing about having to watch your back when venturing off the conference grounds. The crime had a surpressive effect…
Leptogenys attenuata In spite of the southern winter, the coastal forests of Kwazulu-Natal had plenty of ant activity to keep me occupied last week. In addition to the beautiful Polyrhachis I posted earlier, here are portraits of a few of the species I encountered. Crematogaster tricolor Platythyrea cooperi Myrmicaria natalensis Plectroctena mandibularis Anochetus faurei Oecophylla longinoda (African Tailor Ant) Cataulacus brevisetosus Dorylus helvolus Pachycondyla (Bothroponera) mlanjiensis Atopomyrmex mocquerysi Pheidole megacephala (Big-Headed Ant) Solenopsis geminata (…
Chrysina (=Plusiotis) gloriosa - The Glorious Beetle Huachuca Mountains, Arizona Few of Arizona's beetles are as spectacular as the jewel scarabs in the genus Chrysina. They are most readily collected by blacklight (as in Kojun's handful o' beetles) in juniper forests in the weeks following the arrival of the monsoon. photo details: Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon 20D Indirect strobe fired into white box
Yesterday's unexpectedly intense monsoon storms brought several inches of rain and flash floods to Tucson.  Many of our desert ants cue their mating flights with the onset of the summer rains, and this morning the Forelius were flying, congregating in dense swarms that twirled and twisted above the desert floor. Males emerge from the nest, ready to go: photo details: (flight photos) Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a Canon 20D ISO 100, f/2.8, 1/800sec exposure (close-ups) Canon MP-E 65mm macro lens on a Canon 20D ISO 100, f/13, 1/250sec exposure, twin flash diffused through tracing…
A century ago, William Morton Wheeler inked this iconic illustration of the striking polymorphism displayed among members of an ant colony. You may have seen it; Andrew Bourke and Nigel Franks used it as the cover for their 1995 text Social Evolution in Ants. I always assumed Wheeler's figure depicted some exotic tropical marauder ant, a voracious jungle species with massive soldiers for slicing up hapless prey. I don't read captions carefully enough, I guess, because I learned recently that this charismatic creature is actually a local harvester ant, Pheidole tepicana. Not only that, but…
Derobrachus hovorei - Palo Verde Borer Cerambycidae Tucson, Arizona Every June, hundreds of thousands of giant beetles emerge from beneath the Tucsonian soil. The enormous size of these beetles- up to several inches long- makes them among the most memorable of Tucson's insects. They cruise about clumsily in the evenings, flying at eye level as they disperse and look for mates. Palo Verde beetles spend most of their lives as subterranean grubs feeding on the roots of Palo Verde trees. Adults emerge in early summer, usually ahead of the monsoon, and by August they are gone. It is still a…
Scott Solomon, who researches fungus-growing ants, has a brief piece in Slate Magazine on the Paratrechina Crazy Ants invading Houston. I'm not convinced that this ant is anything different from Paratrechina fulva, a common South American species and the oldest name in that species complex. People have been calling the Houston invader "P. cf. pubens", but the taxonomy of the genus is so poor that it's difficult to say anything with confidence. Do you folks who've looked at specimens (that's you, James) have any thoughts about the identity of this ant?
Carpophilus sp. Sap Beetle, Nitidulidae Arizona The Opuntia prickly-pear cacti have been flowering the past few weeks. Every time I poke at a blossom I find several chunky Carpophilus beetles. photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon 20D f/13, 1/250 sec, ISO 100, twin flash diffused through tracing paper
Pheidole pegasus Sarnat 2008 Fiji Eli Sarnat, the reigning expert on the Ants of Fiji, has just published a lovely taxonomic revision of a group of Pheidole that occur on the islands. Pheidole are found in warmer regions worldwide, but Fiji has seen a remarkable radiation of species that share a bizarre set of spines on the mesosoma. Eli sorted through hundreds of these things to determine that the group contains seven species, five of which had not previously been described. Pheidole pegasus is largest and among the most distinct of the group.  It was collected only once, from the…