Alex Wild on insects, science, and photography
With all the recent attention devoted to Pheidole‘s apparently latent ability to produce supermajor workers at the drop of a hormone, now is an opportune time to mention Pheidole fimbriata. Pheidole fimbriata is, according to Corrie Moreau’s research, the single sister species to the remaining 1000+ in the genus. That is, the first thing to happen when Pheidole first [...]
An excerpt from the documentary “Ants: Nature’s Secret Power”
One measure of a predator’s ecological significance is the abundance of strategies prey adopt to avoid being eaten. And how ecologically significant are ants? They are enough of a problem to web-building spiders that the arachnids impregnate their webs with ant-deterring 2-pyrrolidinone: …ants are rarely reported foraging on the webs of orb-weaving spiders, despite the [...]
Who *is* that handsome man at 0:25? update: ok, so I have a slight tendency to wave my hands about when making a point.
Time for another long blog! Scroll down… It’s late in the season for ant mating flights, but this little queen showed up just now at our porch light. In life she’s only half a centimeter long. photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 7D ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec two [...]
Several people have asked about recent news stories covering the “Hairy Crazy Ant” sweeping across the U.S. south. What’s the deal? (AP) NEW ORLEANS – It sounds like a horror movie: Biting ants invade by the millions. A camper’s metal walls bulge from the pressure of ants nesting behind them. A circle of poison stops [...]
And now some bad news. A new study by Mariano Rodriguez-Cabal in Biological Invasions appears to document an unfortunate effect of the ongoing Pachycondyla chinensis needle ant invasion: a decrease in wild evergreen ginger plants. Abstract: By disrupting the structure of native ant assemblages, invasive ants can have effects across trophic levels. Most studies to date, [...]
A photo from 2006 that I never posted:
The greatest enemies of ants are other ants- including members of the same species- so when these little insects encounter each other outside the safety of the nest they make a quick chemical assessment: nestmate or foreigner? Friend or foe? These tropical Dolichoderus workers apparently belonged to the same colony. After the greeting photographed above, [...]
A picture is worth 1000 words: Made from a test tube, cotton, and water, this simple setup is sufficient for most ant species. Fill a test tube about 1/2 full with water. Plunge cotton into the water until it is wet but not soggy. Seal the queen in with a dry cotton plug. The genius [...]
A personal weblog 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? Comments? Email alwild [at] myrmecos.net
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