One of Josh King’s lab ants at the University of Central Florida. The blunt head serves as a living door to this species’ twig nests. photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 7D ISO 200 f/13 1/250 sec diffuse twin flash
Posts Tagged ‘Ants’
Benoit Guenard figures out the easiest places to record new ant genera
If you follow myrmecology on the internet, you probably know about Benoit Guenard’s Global Ants database. Benoit has spent years combing disparate biological literature and natural history collections to compile a comprehensive map of where all the 300-some ant genera are known to live. This information is useful in its own right (want to know [...]
The eastern ant cricket Myrmecophilus pergandei
If you look closely when opening large ant nests in the northern hemisphere temperate zone, there is a good chance you’ll see ant crickets. These flattened, wingless insects are kleptoparasites living among ant colonies, stealing food and tricking the ants into feeding them. The common species where we live in the midwest is the eastern [...]
Tetramorium bicarinatum
All this talk about copyright infringement is a real downer. It’s time to perk things up with pretty ants:
Why do ants and other social insects have elbowed antennae?
A defining feature of many social insects is an unusual antennal form. The base segment is elongated such that the antennae take on a shape rather similar to a human arm. What’s up with this “elbowed” appearance? Quite simply, the kink allows the insect to feel with her antennae what she is holding in her [...]
Meet Zatania, a new ant genus
I’ve been remiss in not mentioning the latest addition to the world list of ant genera: Zatania LaPolla, Kallal & Brady 2011. This perky little formicine is not new in the sense that the insects have just been discovered. Rather, it is new in that the previous inclusion of its species in an existing genus, [...]
First ant mating flight of the year
It’s a balmy 75º here in Champaign-Urbana, the warmest day this year. The winged Prenolepis reproductives that have been waiting patiently for spring have decided today is the day, and all over town the little ants are erupting from their underground empires to mingle and mate. Our front yard has become an ant orgy! Here are [...]
Sunday Night Movie: Travels of an Ant
This adorable 1983 animation by Eduard Nazarov was one of the films featured at last night’s Insect Fear Film Festival:
An enormous egg
Ant guru Jack Longino sends in a myrmecological wonder: Hey Alex, You and/or the antblog might find this interesting. I thought it was pretty cool. Ergatoid queen of Leptogenys josephi, in the process of laying an egg. That’s a big egg! Bet they don’t lay those too fast. Various species of small Leptogenys have these [...]
Podomyrma adelaidae
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 7D ISO 200, f/13, 1/250 sec diffuse twin flash
A personal weblog by Illinois-based biologist and photographer Alex Wild.
