About Alex Wild

I am a photographer and research scientist specializing in insects, especially ants, but also beetles, bees, wasps, and various other arthropod curiosities. My scientific background is in systematics, a broad field that includes the discovery, description, and classification of life and the inference of evolutionary relationships.

The word Myrmecos derives from ancient Greek for “ant” and reflects my fascination with the earth’s most abundant social organisms. Myrmecos blog, online since 2007, is an exploration of these and other small animals.

Unless otherwise indicated, the photographs appearing on Myrmecos blog are my own, and they are available for commercial licensing. Educational and selected non-profit use is strongly encouraged and free of licensing fees. Please contact me (alwild [at] myrmecos.net) with questions about image permissions.

• New York Times
• National Geographic
• Scientific American
• Popular Science
• Ranger Rick
• Smithsonian
• A&E Television Networks
• California Academy of Sciences (San Francisco)
• Audubon Insectarium (New Orleans)
• Uncle Milton Industries
• Nature
• Science
• McGraw-Hill
• Houghton-Mifflin

• Smith, C. D. et al. 2011. Draft genome of the globally widespread and invasive Argentine ant (Linepithema humile). PNAS published ahead of print January 31, 2011, doi:10.1073/pnas.1008617108
• Wild, A. L., and I. Brake. 2009. Field observations on Milichia patrizii ant-mugging flies (Diptera: Milichiidae: Milichiinae) in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. African Invertebrates 50: 205–212.
• Wild, A. L. 2009. Evolution of the Neotropical Ant Genus Linepithema. Systematic Entomology 34:49-62. doi 10.1111/j.1365-3113.2008.00435.x
• Wild, A. L., and D. R. Maddison. 2008. Evaluating nuclear protein-coding genes for phylogenetic utility in the Coleoptera. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 48: 877–91.
• Wild, A. L. 2007. A Catalogue of the Ants of Paraguay (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Zootaxa 1622: 1–55.
• Wild, A. L. 2007. Taxonomic revision of the ant genus Linepithema (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). University of California Publications in Entomology 126.
• Wild, A. L.,  and F. Cuezzo. 2006. Zootaxa 1142: 57-68.
• Wild, A. L. 2005. Taxonomic revision of the Pachycondyla apicalis species complex (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Zootaxa 834: 1–25.
• Roura-Pascual, N, A. V. Suarez, C. Gomez, P. Pons, Y. Touyama, A. L. Wild, A. T. Peterson. 2004. Geographic potential of Argentine ants (Linepithema humile Mayr) in the face of global climate change. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B 271:2527-2534.

photo of Alex & Grasshopper by Saber Miresmailli