Insect Links
awild | November 18, 2008
A young adult Comperia merceti, a parasitoid wasp in the family Encyrtidae, emerges from the egg case of its cockroach host.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, f/11, 1/200 sec, flash diffused through tracing paper
awild | November 16, 2008
Pyramica ludovici - KZN, South Africa
I am still working through the South African ant photos I took this July. Progress is slow. I'm not terribly familiar with the African fauna, and the species have to be keyed out and checked against the literature so I can post images with the proper identification. All the same, I'm not 100%.
What I've learned in the process is that Brian Taylor's Ants of Africa site is indispensable. The interface is a bit web-1.0-clunky, but the content is exactly what I need. This morning I keyed the above Pyramica to the pan-African species P. ludovici in…
awild | November 15, 2008A few places where myrmecos.net photographs have recently appeared:
La Banque de Savoirs has a French-language slideshow featuring several of my images.
The BBC illustrates a recent news item on the link between pests and climate change using an Argentine Ant photo from my back yard in California.
The Xerces Society- North America's premier invertebrate conservation group - is borrowing myrmecos.net images for banners here and here.
GIANT MICROBES, the folks responsible for plush Syphilis, are using images to accompany their new line of plush Lasius and Solenopsis.
awild | November 14, 2008
Nosodendron californicum - Wounded Tree Beetle
California, USA
From the Department of Really Obscure Insects, here's a beetle that few non-specialists will recognize. Nosodendron inhabits the rotting tissue of long-festering tree wounds. These beetles are not rare so much as specialized to an environment where few entomologists think to look.  If you can spot the telltale stains of an old wound on the trunks of large trees, you should be able to find Nosodendron. They feed on the microbes- the yeast and bacteria- that grow in the sap leaking from the phloem.
There are, in fact, whole…
awild | November 13, 2008
Atta cephalotes carrying leaves, Ecuador
Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution this morning has the first detailed molecular phylogeny of the leafcutting ant genus Atta. MaurÃcio Bacci et al sequenced several mitochondrial genes and the nuclear gene EF-1a from 13 of the 15 described species-level taxa, using them to infer the evolutionary history of the genus.
This is an important paper.Â
Atta is the classic leafcutter ant of the new world tropics and a model system for co-evolution among the ants, the fungi they cultivate, and a suite of microbes that either parasitize or protect the…
awild | November 12, 2008
Kaspari et al. discover that coastal ants avoid salt while inland ants can't get enough.
Kaspari, M., Yanoviak, S. P., and Dudley, R. 2008. On the biogeography of salt limitation: a study of ant communities. PNAS early edition, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0804528105.
Barry Bolton and Brian Fisher continue their taxonomic work on the African ponerines in a recent issue of Zootaxa. The paper establishes a new genus, Feroponera.
Bolton, B. & Fisher, B. L. 2008. Afrotropical ants of the ponerine genera Centromyrmex Mayr,…
awild | November 12, 2008
If they gave out awards for Goofiest Bug, Psocoptera (Bark Lice) would surely make the short list.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, flash diffused through tracing paper
awild | November 11, 2008
"Magic circle - Venezuela" by Benoit Guenard
The NCSU insect blog has announced its 2008 photo contest winners.
Myrmecologist Benoit Guenard took Best in Show for his "Magic Circle" macro of a stingless bee nest. Deservedly, in my opinion. That's an awesome shot.
awild | November 10, 2008
Neivamyrmex army ants attacking a pavement ant, California
I see this morning that Daniel Kronauer has published a review of army ant biology in Myrmecological News. The paper, among other topics, attempts to straighten out some key terminology:
AenEcDo army ant: a connotation free abbreviation that is introduced here to avoid the term "true" army ant. It collectively refers to species in the three subfamilies Aenictinae, Ecitoninae, and Dorylinae and is strictly taxonomically defined.
Army ant: any ant species with the army ant adaptive syndrome.
Army ant adaptive syndrome: a life-…
awild | November 9, 2008
Aenictus aratus - Queensland
In my utterly unbiased opinion, Australia hosts the most charismatic ant fauna of all the continents. Except for their army ants, that is. While South America is bursting at the seams with scores of Eciton, Labidus, and Neivamyrmex, and Africa has hoardes of Dorylus, Australia's army ants are limited to a few small species of Aenictus, a genus that is likely a recent arrival, in a geological sense, from Asia.
In any case, Steve Shattuck continues his taxonomic march through the Australian ants, reviewing the Australian Aenictus in a paper appearing Friday in…
awild | November 7, 2008
Chrysina beyeri - Beyer's Scarab - Arizona
Arizona's Jewel Scarabs emerge after the onset of summer rains. These large insects have something of a cult following among collectors, and enthusiasts from around the world descend on the Sonoran desert every monsoon season with their mercury vapor lamps and blacklights to entice the lumbering beetles into their traps. The effects of this mass harvesting on Chrysina populations have not been studied, but they should be. I'd hate to lose such an attractive species.
Beyer's scarab, the largest Chrysina in the United States, feeds on oak foliage…
awild | November 5, 2008As I've gotten more serious about photography, the single biggest change I've made is to premeditate my photo sessions. Instead of haphazardly shooting whichever subjects happen across my lens- my habit during my first few years with a camera- I tend now to have a particular image in mind well in advance of a shoot. The timing and location of a session, the equipment, and the lighting are all planned accordingly.
Cephalotes atratus, the gliding ant. Panama, 2007.
This gliding ant in mid-air is a good example. A small insect in free fall is not the sort of thing one happens to point-and…
awild | October 31, 2008
Braconid wasps attacking caterpillar - pumpkin by Lorenzo Rodriguez
Urbana, Illinois
awild | October 28, 2008
I could spend hours looking at Princess Peppercloud's playful, stylistic take on the lives of ants. Do yourself a big happy favor and pay the princess a visit.
awild | October 27, 2008
Jim Wetterer has a paper out in Myrmecological News detailing the global spread of the ghost ant Tapinoma melanocephalum. This diminutive dolichoderine is quite possibly the most widely distributed ant in the world, a hitchhiker on human globalization, thriving in the wake of human-wrought ecological destruction. Their cosmopolitan dominance reflects our own.
Oddly enough, we still don't even know where they originally lived.
Ghost Ants - photo by Picasa user Aimeric
citation: Wetterer, J. K. 2008. Worldwide spread of the ghost ant Tapinoma melanocephalum (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). …
awild | October 26, 2008
A True Fruit Fly - Tephritidae
Fruit flies are a family, Tephritidae, containing about 5,000 species of often strikingly colored insects. As the name implies, these flies are frugivores. Many, such as the mediterranean fruit fly, are agricultural pests.
Drosophila melanogaster, the insect that has been so important in genetic research, is not a true fruit fly. Drosophila is a member of the Drosophilidae, the vinegar or pomace flies. They are mostly fungivores, and their association with fruit is indirect: they eat the fungus that lives in rotting fruit. Some pointy-headed…
awild | October 24, 2008
Chrysochus auratus - Dogbane Leaf Beetle
New York
At first glance one might mistake the dogbane leaf beetle for a creature of the tropical jungle, an exotic jewel sought after by the most discerning of collectors. But no. It's a rather common beetle in northeastern North America, where it feeds on plants in the Dogbane family Apocynaceae. I photographed this one a few years ago on a rainy summer day in upstate New York.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon D60
ISO 100, f/13, 1/200 sec, flash diffused through tracing paper
awild | October 22, 2008
Adetomyrma sp. "mad-01", larvae and adults
Madagascar
With a name like "dracula ant" you'd think these waspy little Adetomyrma might suddenly lunge for your jugular. But they are shy creatures, drinking not the blood of hapless victims but sparingly from the hemolymph of their own larvae. It's an odd behavior, yet one that makes a certain amount of sense when considering the haphazard way that evolution works.
Here's the problem: ants have a skinny little waist through which their digestive tract must pass. Solid food would lodge in the bottleneck and kill the ant, so the ants can't eat…