Alex Wild
awild
Posts by this author
March 13, 2008
DEET is the main ingredient in most insect repellents. Slather it on and it's like magic; the mozzies just fly on by. Nothing else is as effective.
In spite of its utility, DEET is pretty nasty stuff. Depending on where you are in the world, you might be healthier just letting the bugs bite. It…
March 11, 2008
Coprophanaeus caroliae Edmonds 2008
Dung Beetle - Bolivia
Source: Edmonds, W.D. 2008. A new species of Coprophanaeus Olsoufieff (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) from Bolivia. Zootaxa 1723: 42-46.
March 11, 2008
Myrmecologist and artist Andrea Lucky sent me this picture, depicting her controversial view that Adam Ant was really a Myrmecia.
March 9, 2008
Strumigenys louisianae stalking a springtail
Tucson, Arizona
Non-native species should make a naturalist's skin crawl, but these ornate little trap-jaw ants are a guilty pleasure. Strumigenys louisianae is among the most widespread of the miniature trap-jaw ants, occurring naturally from the…
March 7, 2008
Apteroloma caraboides (Agyrtidae) - Snowfield Beetle
California
Why would I waste a prime Friday Beetle Blogging slot on such a drab little beetle? Because Apteroloma caraboides does something really cool. Really cold, even. This species inhabits the edges of high-altitude snowfields. They…
March 6, 2008
Here's a fun application that matches a journal to your research: Jane: the Journal/Author Name Estimator
To see what would happen, I fed a few of my research projects to Jane. Apparently I'm supposed to submit all my work to Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. In some sense that's reassuring…
March 4, 2008
but apparently the Myrmecos Blog is "excellent". Thanks Adrian!
On the off chance you actually came here looking for excellence, let me send you off in some more fruitful directions:
Drawing the MotMot
Stu Jenks
NCSU Insect Blog
March 3, 2008
One of my favorites, and the only pop song ever written about a nightlight:
March 2, 2008
istockphoto lists their over-submitted subjects:
Your dog or cat
Flowers
Flags
Feet
Immediate environment - computer equipment
Light blurs
Brick Walls
Fire
Eyes
Symbols
Sunsets and clouds
Forests
Airplane wings
Your shadow
Backgrounds
February 29, 2008
Out today is a preprint version (subscription only) of Corrie Moreau's Pheidole phylogeny. At first glance this seems a nice piece of work: the evolutionary history of one of the world's most diverse ant genera inferred from 140 species and 5 genes.
This is some extremely cool ant evolution…
February 29, 2008
Lycus net-winged beetles, Arizona
My latest beetle photos are now posted at myrmecos.net.
February 28, 2008
Laccophilus pictus - Predaceous Diving Beetle
Arizona, USA
Here's one of my favorite Arizona insects. Laccophilus pictus is a small diving beetle, less than a centimeter long, that is common in small ponds and streams in the mountains south of Tucson. It's also one of the beetles that we're…
February 28, 2008
Ectatomma parasiticum Feitosa & Fresneau 2008
Mexico
In today's Zootaxa, Feitosa et al describe a workerless social parasite in the ant genus Ectatomma. Like many discoveries, this one was fortuitous. The authors were collecting nests of the common Ectatomma tuberculatum when they noticed…
February 28, 2008
http://plazi.org/
Donat Agosti's group has launched Plazi, a set of tools that translates flat paper taxonomy into dynamic web content. This technology is significant: it means the content of old literature can be extracted automatically into databases. Taxonomic names are tracked and linked to…
February 27, 2008
Meet Ectatomma tuberculatum. This tropical insect has the largest genome of 40 species of ants measured in a study by Neil Tsutsui et al in BioMed Central. Weighing in at 690 megabases, E. tuberculatum has nearly twice as much DNA as most other ant species, leading the authors to suggest that a…
February 26, 2008
For a devastatingly thorough critique, read Rod Page's first impressions of EoL:
The first release was always going to be a disappointment, especially given the hype. What frustrates me, however, is just how far the first release is from what it could have been. The real question is how much the…
February 25, 2008
The imminent release of an embryonic Encyclopedia of Life (EoL) has journalists buzzing about an exciting new online resource. I wish I could share their enthusiasm.
EoL has announced 1.7 million species pages within a decade, providing biological information for all of the world's described…
February 24, 2008
I've got a new series of Dinoponera photographs up at myrmecos.net. Click on the image above to see the gallery.
These giant black insects are the largest South American ants, and although there is at least one Asian Carpenter ant (Camponotus gigas) that's a bit bigger, Dinoponera weighs in as…
February 22, 2008
The smallest insect I've ever photographed made the cover of the scientific journal Genetics this week. Encarsia pergandiella, an aphelinid wasp not even a millimeter long, was the subject of a study by Perlmann, Kelly, and Hunter documenting the reproductive consequences of infection by bacterial…
February 22, 2008
Scaphinotus petersi - Snail-Eating Ground Beetle
Arizona
Ground beetles- the family Carabidae- are a spectacular evolutionary radiation of terrestrial predators. The elegant, flightless beetles of the genus Scaphinotus prefer snails and slugs.
photo details. TOP PHOTO. Canon 100mm f2.8 macro…
February 20, 2008
I'm waiting for my PCR reagents to thaw, so in the meantime here are a few links for your perusal:
The folks at NCSU insect blog make fun of we ant peoples' curatorial habits.
Bug Girl takes on some anti-pheromone paranoia in California.
Carl Zimmer on the awesomeness of cephalopod camouflage.
February 19, 2008
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Does ant activity cycle by an internal clock, or is their activity cycle a response to changing environmental cues?
A study in Insectes Sociaux weighs in on the side of environment. Penick & Tschinkel experimented with applying light and heat from different directions and at different times…
February 18, 2008
The rise of microstock photography has many established photographers wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth over how microstock companies are destroying the business.
What is microstock? It is a relatively new internet-based business model that licenses existing images for scandalously low…
February 15, 2008
Lutrochus arizonicus - Travertine Beetle
Arizona, USA
Here's an odd sort of beetle of whose existence I was entirely ignorant until a few showed up in our lab. My primary research these days is with the Beetle Tree of Life group, and the travertine beetle is just one of many Coleopteran wonders I…
February 14, 2008
The latest edition of the myrmecological newsletter is online here. It may well be the last, according to editor Gordon Snelling:
We have close to 200 members and I can count on two hands the people that have regularly supported Notes by sending in material…
February 13, 2008
 Formica accreta, Northern California
I wish I could say I knew what these ants were doing. Hiding from the photographer, perhaps? Formica of the fusca species group are notoriously shy insects, but not all of these ones seemed to be equally spooked.
photo details: Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x …
February 12, 2008
Not the real thing of course, but look how cute the plush version is:
The company GiantMicrobes has a delightful line of plush plagues and pestilences. I've pasted a few more below, but you really should visit their site.
February 12, 2008
Today is Charles Darwin's 199th birthday. Aussie blogger John Wilkins provides an eloquent summation of Darwin's significance:
So remember Darwin not as the discoverer of anything, but as the guy who set off a fruitful, active, complex and ultimately explanatory research program in biology, which…
February 11, 2008
Ant Course 2008 is scheduled for Venezuela this August. The Ant Course, now in its 8th year, gives students an introduction to myrmecology with a decidedly taxonomic focus. More than just an academic exercise, the course serves as a meeting place where newcomers can mingle with an all-star cast…