Alex Wild on insects, science, and photography
Here’s something I did not know. Some South American dung beetles have given up their usual fecal diet to prey actively on ant queens: I can’t say I blame them. Luiz Forti reports in a recent issue of Psyche: Canthon virens exhibited 28 behaviors while predating upon Atta sp. queens. Adult beetles search for queens while flying in a [...]
Want to see the world’s species, but lack the wherewithal to travel to the earth’s farthest corners? You could do pretty well just visiting Florida. The state’s warm climate and constant human commerce make for an easy home-away-from-home for a staggering number of introduced species. Pythons from Asia, trees from Australia, birds from Europe, frogs from [...]
When I first saw the following figure, presented by myrmecologist Chris Schmidt at a social insect conference, the whole room broke into laughter: Pachycondyla, among the most common ants in tropical regions worldwide, turns out to be a motley assortment of unrelated species. While the taxonomy of the world’s 12,000 or so ant species is [...]
The prairies of central North America are especially harsh environments. Half a continent removed from the buffering effect of oceans, temperatures in the plains soar in summer and crash in winter. Winds, and often fires, surge across the landscape. The prairie is not an easy place. Prairie is also an environment I don’t spend much [...]
Few stories of mutualism in nature are more common than those of the honeydew-producing aphids and the ants that tend them. In theory, by attracting ants, aphids gain protection from predators. Yet, the Tapinoma in my garden are doing a simply horrible job of protecting their charges from anything. Here are some photographs from just now. I [...]
Literally. Andrea Lucky is now accepting applications for a master’s degree student position in myrmecology at the University of Florida: This is an excellent opportunity. I visited last month. Great lab, enthusiastic entomology student community, access to a world-class research collection (especially good in butterflies), and plenty of lovely, local, subtropical insects.
Over at CE I mentioned the trouble of useful natural history photographs that are technically mediocre: …the blurry capture is my only photograph of [an] animal. Do I upload it to my professional galleries anyway? It won’t look great printed, and I’d feel embarrassed to sell it onwards for, say, a display at a natural [...]
Entomologist Saber Miresmailli has a new tattoo modeled on one of my turtle ants. This week, Saber sent in the following backstory along with the above image: Tattoos are very personal and one should have strong conviction about an idea, a thought, a memory or a concept to permanently mark it on his or her [...]
Spring has arrived in full! The birds are singing, the tulips blooming, and the trees are greening. But, whatever. As an ant guy my favorite indication of the season is much more chitinous: massive urban ant warfare The Tetramorium pavement ants that live under every sidewalk in town have begun their spring expansion. When colonies meet, [...]
Here’s the new best thing ever. It’s a slow-motion video from ant guy Adrian Smith: Because ants are small, and because action at ant size happens quickly, we humans have a tough time appreciating life at ant scales. When filmed at 600 frames per second and slowed, ant action becomes much easier to take in. [...]
A personal blog by Illinois-based biologist and photographer Alex Wild.
Myrmecos- derived from the ancient greek word for "ant"- hosts Alex's musings about these and other little creatures that share our planet.
Questions? Email alwild [at] myrmecos.net; or follow @Myrmecos on Twitter.
