Alex Wild
awild
Posts by this author
January 21, 2009
Not much time to blog today. Instead, some links:
Roberto Keller has wonderfully detailed SEMs of the clypeal pegs of amblyoponine ants.
Douglas Adams' Jeremy Lee's view of Australia is spot on, except for the bit about snakes, which are worse than Adams Lee thinks. (h/t John Wilkins)
The New…
January 20, 2009
New Orleans, January 2009
The first major public exhibit to open in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina was the Audubon Nature Institute's Insectarium. We took advantage of a lull in our schedule last week to make the pilgrimage to what turns out to be a surprisingly ambitious operation. It…
January 20, 2009
Over at the Ant Farm Forum they're playing a round of Name That Ant*. This week's challenge was posed by MarekB and is a particularly tough one. Go on over to try your hand.
*This sort of activity is certainly not geeky.
January 19, 2009
Camponotus discolor male, queen, and worker
Here's an image I should have taken years ago. It's a stylized shot of the different castes in an ant colony, perfect for a textbook illustration of the morphological distinctions among males, gynes, and workers. Better late than never, I suppose.…
January 18, 2009
This is what happens when society teaches people to hate and fear insects:
January 18, 2009
Only one lens can take this shot
If you've paid attention to insect photography over the past decade, you'll likely have noticed that a single lens, Canon's MP-E 1-5x macro, has come to dominate the market. Every professional insect photographer I know owns one, and many of the dedicated…
January 16, 2009
Zygogramma leaf beetles, Arizona
Leaf beetles such as these brightly marked Zygogramma constitute one of the largest evolutionary radiations- the Chrysomelidae- among all animals. This family of beetles owes its tremendous diversity to an herbivorous association with flowering plants.
photo…
January 15, 2009
This weekend, Arizona State University is hosting a slate of myrmecologists to brainstorm on ant genomes. I'd link to the meeting information, but apparently the gathering is so informal that they've not given the event a web page. In any case, the topic is this: in the age of (relatively)…
January 14, 2009
From the Small Science Collective comes a little zine about ants:
The idea, I guess, is that printable pamphlets are ideal for scattering about in public places. Or as handouts during door-to-door myrmeco-evangelism.
January 12, 2009
Aphaenogaster cockerelli, Arizona
Here's a new study in Current Biology from Adrian Smith, Bert Hoelldobler, and Juergen Liebig:
Abstract: Cheaters are a threat to every society and therefore societies have established rules to punish these individuals in order to stabilize their social system […
January 11, 2009
Apparently, the world ends in a stream of Japanese narration.
January 10, 2009
A few months ago I mentioned the Lost Lady Bug Project.
It seems they've updated the site so that visitors can now view all the photo submissions. Pretty cool.
January 9, 2009
Gibbium sp. Spider Beetle, Arizona
Spider beetles are not predators like their namesakes but are instead pests of stored grain. I was surprised at how difficult they were to photograph. Their round bodies were hard to fit into a single focal plane, while their reflective elytra were prone to…
January 8, 2009
Sericomyrmex amabilis in its fungus garden, Panama
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, 1/250 sec, f/13, twin flash diffused through tracing paper
January 7, 2009
Birgit Schlick-Steiner, of the University of Innsbruck in Austria, has funding for a Ph.D. student to work on the molecular ecology of the Tetramorium caespitum complex. This research group has produced some top-notch science in recent years, and if you are looking to become a professional…
January 6, 2009
Odontomachus meinerti trap-jaw ant, Argentina
One perk of being at a research university is the opportunity to shoot the various study organisms on campus. These subjects are interesting- they have to be, or they wouldn't be studied- and when the research goes public I get the chance to…
January 4, 2009
From David Attenborough's The Trials of Life (1990):
If you're interested in learning more about navigation in Cataglyphis, look for papers coming from the lab of Rüdiger Wehner. His group has produced a stream of really top-notch research.
January 4, 2009
leafcutter ant mating swarm, Arizona
The sparkle of these insects' wings was captured by pointing the camera at the sun while standing behind the mating swarm. I find backlighting to be one of the most pleasing effects for translucent wings.
photo details: Canon 100mm f2.8Â macro lens on a…
January 3, 2009
In the comments, Eric Eaton makes an observation:
Iâm left wondering (just a little) why Alex has such a beef with Dr. Wilson. This is not the first post taking a jab at Wilson, so while Alex makes an excellent point, Iâm also sensing some underlying issues hereâ¦.
Eric is right there's an issue.Â…
January 1, 2009
Formica incerta, Illinois
Despite a widespread belief that ants produce formic acid, the habit is confined to only one of the 20-some ant subfamilies, the formicinae. This is among the most abundant subfamilies, containing the familiar carpenter ants and field ants, and is recognizable by the…
December 31, 2008
A long-tongued horse fly takes a sip of nectar in Arizona's Chiricahua mountains.
100% crop of the same image.
photo details: Canon 65mm MP-E 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, flash diffused through tracing paper
December 30, 2008
There are days when I wish I hadn't read Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.
Today is one of them.
December 29, 2008
Another year passes. The economy is in the toilet. Violence spreads in the middle east. In these trying times, one question must weigh on the minds of concerned citizens: "What's happening in world of ant science?"
Of course. Here are the myrmecological highlights of 2008:
The Demise of…
December 28, 2008
Starring Jack Longino and filmed by Michael Branstetter. Mmmmm.....
December 28, 2008
This morning I was picking through recent ant literature for a 2008 myrmecological retrospective post when I stumbled on this little gem.
Why do autumn leaves change to such striking colors? Kazuo Yamazaki thinks it's all about the ants:
Therefore, bright autumn leaves may have adaptive…
December 26, 2008
Pasimachus sp. ground beetle, Arizona
My apologies for the lack of blogging the past few days. I've been taking some time away from posting for the holidays, but I'll be back next week. In the meantime, here's a Pasimachus ground beetle...
photo details: Canon 100mm f2.8 macro lens on a…
December 20, 2008
An unusually festive jumping ant from a laboratory colony at Arizona State University. Researchers mark ants with unique patterns of paint to keep track of individuals for studies of ant behavior.
December 17, 2008
In an earlier post I listed my favorite insect images of the year taken by other photographers. Now it's my turn. Here is the best of my own work over the last 12 months.
Laccophilus pictus, Arizona
Dinoponera australis, Argentina
Parasitic Cotesia wasp attacks a Manduca larva…