polyergus
awild | September 23, 2009James Trager writes in this week with a request and a photo:
I have been interested in Polyergus (âAmazon antsâ, see here) since childhood, when I first had the good fortune to observe them on summer afternoons in northern New Mexico. After decades of intermittent field observations and microscopic examination of specimens of these ants from various parts of the USA and Eurasia, and various interactions with other researchers on this group, I came to the conclusion that a taxonomic revision of the group is necessary.
Some background: Linda Goodloe, in her 1986 City University of NY…
awild | September 10, 2009
I nominate Polyergus for the worst common name among ants: Amazon Ants. I'm cranky this morning and for some reason this has been irking me.
I now know they were named for their habit of raiding other ant nests, but I spent much of my childhood thinking they were some exotic tropical creature found in places like the...um...Amazon. I never thought to look for Polyergus locally. I was rather confused when, at age 12, I happened on a raid in upstate New York.
As it turns out, this is a common holarctic genus. Polyergus doesn't get anywhere near the real Amazon- it is more at home on…
awild | September 9, 2008All the better to steal your brood with, my little red riding ant...
Polyergus
Champaign, Illinois
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