Alex Wild
awild
Posts by this author
December 16, 2008
This just in: Eli Sarnat's "Pacific Invasive Ants" website is up. It's got something for everyone: fact sheets, videos, keys, links.  Eli's got an eye for design, too, so the site is aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate.
http://www.lucidcentral.org/keys/v3/PIAkey/index.html
(…
December 16, 2008
Forelius damiani Guerrero & Fernández 2008
Colombia
The ant genus Forelius - named for the eminent Swiss myrmecologist Auguste Forel- is known for its abundance in hot, dry climates in both North and South America. This affinity for deserts has given the genus a markedly disjunct…
December 14, 2008
Remember Martialis heureka? Antweb.org has just posted some new high-res images of the specimen:
December 14, 2008
Neivamyrmex nigrescens, Arizona
Army ants have a decidedly tropical reputation. The term conjures spectacular images of swarms sweeping across remote Amazonian villages, devouring chickens, cows, and small children unlucky enough to find themselves in the path of the ants. Of course, the…
December 13, 2008
From an interview with E. O. Wilson:
[Q:]Are ants better at anything than humans?
[Wilson:] Human beings have not yet made an accommodation with the rest of lifeâwhereas ants, whose history dates back more than 100 million years, have achieved that balance, mostly by specializing among the 14,000…
December 12, 2008
Cytilus alternatus, Pennsylvania
This lovely little round insect is called a pill beetle. Why is that, you ask?
Check this out:
Retractile legs!
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 100, f/13, 1/250 sec, twin flash diffused through tracing paper
December 11, 2008
The above pie chart shows the relative proportions of described species in various groups of organisms. As we can see, most species are invertebrate animals. Things like snails, flatworms, spiders, sponges, and insects.
Now compare that slice of pie to the proportion of GenBank sequences that…
December 10, 2008
Apterobittacus apterus, California
I lived in California until a few years ago, and one thing I enjoyed about the Golden State was the unique insect fauna, full of bizarre and relictual creatures. One of the oddities was the wingless hangingfly, a leggy mecopteran that lurks in the coastal…
December 10, 2008
I see that Pachycondyla chinensis, which people are apparently calling "The Asian Needle Ant", is making headlines this week.
I know very little about P. chinensis, but the ant is apparently becoming widespread in the Southeast. Rob Dunn's lab at NCSU researches the species and has put up a page…
December 9, 2008
Solenopsis invicta - invasive or just disturbed?
Prevailing wisdom holds that imported fire ants marched across the southern United States on the virtue of their fierce nature and superior competitive ability. The fire ant conquest of the south reads like a tale of bravery and intrigue, but…
December 9, 2008
I can't help but feel gleeful at this morning's news.  Back in January I had landed, I thought, a postdoctoral position at the Illinois Natural History Survey. It was a dream job. I've been itching for years to figure out what's really going on with the evolutionary history of Camponotus, a…
December 8, 2008
Today we have a guest post by myself, from 25 years ago:
It was my very first ant publication, printed on the back page of a biweekly family newsletter. The ants I later determined to be Lasius flavus, and I am happy to report that the species still abounds at my old haunts in upstate NY despite…
December 7, 2008
There will always be enough love to go around. Just not enough bicycles...
December 7, 2008
Do you like Tiger Bettles?
If so, you may have a future as an Entumalejust.
December 6, 2008
Macrophotography, as applied to Mingus the Cat.
photo details: Canon 35mm f2.0 lens with a 12mm extension tube, Canon EOS 20D
ISO 400, f/5, 1/100 sec, indirect strobe
December 6, 2008
Roberto Keller uses his new blog to explain the acidopore.
Sylvia Cremer et al dissect the evolution of Lasius neglectus supercolonies in PLoS ONE.
Popular reviews of Hoelldobler and Wilson's "The Superorganism" can be found in Slate Magazine and the New York Times. Jon Seal provides a scientist'…
December 5, 2008
Metrius contractus
Oregon, USA
Many biologists are familiar with the Bombardier Beetles in the ground beetle tribe Brachinini, as their defensive tactic of aiming an explosive spray has been studied extensively. The Brachinini are even celebrated by creationists as animals that couldn't possibly…
December 4, 2008
Amblyopone australis
The correct pronunciation of this ant's name is Am-blee-ah-pon-ee, with the emphasis on the antepenultimate syllable and the final "e" audible. But I don't know anyone who says it that way.
Every English-speaking myrmecologist I know calls it "Am-blee-oh-pohn", with the…
December 4, 2008
A deer flea hangs from a hair, California
I don't ordinarily hang around animal carcasses. But every now and again I'll brave a fresh roadkill to shoot the parasites as they jump ship from the cooling body. Fleas and lice are fascinating creatures, and as they are hardly ever photographed…
December 3, 2008
Linepithema flavescens, last seen in 1934
Linepithema flavescens, a small yellow ant from Haiti, is one of the species I re-described as part of my Ph.D. dissertation. All we know about this ant, apart from the brief notes on the specimen labels, is the external appearance of a few workers. …
December 2, 2008
Evolving Complexity tagged me in. Here they are:
5 Things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago
Buzzing on yerba maté
Learning Portuguese
Living in Asunción's transvestite district
Picking out sites for the incoming Peace Corps volunteers
Applying to graduate school
5 Things On My To-Do List Today
Process…
December 1, 2008
...as judged by an utterly impartial panel of one here at Myrmecos Blog. These are photographs that caught my eye and my imagination over the past year. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
Globular Springtail, by Brian Valentine
Horsefly, by Igor Siwanowicz
Angry Queen, by Piotr Naskrecki…
November 30, 2008
Let's take a lesson from the Swiss. They deem myrmecologists of such great national importance that one once adorned the face of the country's highest currency. Auguste-Henri Forel and his beloved ants were featured on the 1000 Franc note from 1976 to 1995.
Ponder that for a moment.
A country…
November 30, 2008
Apparently the leafy green banner above is insufficient camouflage in the blogosphere. The Myrmecos Blog has been noticed by the meme-passers. Three times this week.
Bug Girl has tagged me with the "Six Random Things". Adrian Thysse would rather have me do "Five Things". And Huckleberry…
November 28, 2008
Martineziana dutertrei Fire Ant Beetle
Texas
Any insect that can fool an ant nest's security system gains access to rich stores of food. Martineziana scarab beetles are found only in colonies of Solenopsis fire ants where they feed on the ants and their brood. This beetle was collected from a…
November 27, 2008
As a matter of coincidence, my first blogiversary falls on Thanksgiving day. Happy Thanks-Blog-Giving, then. Or something.
I started out aiming my writing at a non-technical audience. So I featured insect photographs, simplified coverage of entomological news, and notes about photographic…
November 25, 2008
Rhagoletis fruit flies mating, Arizona
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS 20D
ISO 200, f/11, 1/200 sec, backlit by handheld strobe.
November 24, 2008
Last week the Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced that they will be funding Danny Reinberg, Shelley Berger, and Juergen Liebig to sequence three ant genomes. Their interest is research on aging, hoping that solving the puzzle of why genetically identical ant nestmates can either live for a…