Insect Links
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 26, 2008Finally, a solid taxonomy for the Australian Aphaenogaster:
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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…
awild | January 23, 2008
Nilio species, Tenebrionidae
Gamboa, Panama
I thought this was a chrysomelid leaf beetle for the first few minutes of the photo shoot. It's got such a nice round leaf-beetle shape. Not to mention the bright leaf beetle colors.
But no. The arrangement of the tarsi (5-5-4) and the short, 11-segmented antennae give away its true tenebrionid nature. I'd never seen anything like it.
Tenebrionidae are the darkling beetles, most species have rather drab coloration and a more elongate body form. My labmate Kojun, who helpfully identifies the tenebrionids over at bugguide.net, recognized this…
awild | January 21, 2008For your viewing pleasure I've set up a new Hemiptera gallery at www.alexanderwild.com. Hemiptera are the "True Bugs", a large order of insects defined by having the mouthparts modified into a hollow beak. You can visit the gallery here:
Bountiful Bugs Photo Gallery!
I admit being a little embarrassed at how few photographs I have of true bugs. They are a stunningly diverse order of insects, with a great many attractive species, and are extremely important both economically and ecologically.
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.
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 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 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 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 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