awild | March 16, 2010The magical mystery lump from last night? As many astute readers noted, they are insects in the enigmatic order Strepsiptera. They live as parasites in the bodies of other insects. Considering the host species (Isodontia mexicana, a sphecid wasp), the streps are probably in the genus Paraxenos. Here are a couple more shots:
Assuming my math is correct, here's your point breakdown:
Ted McRae: 20
macromite: 20
Joshua King: 20
Gordon Snelling: 10
Scot Waring: 10
Invictacidal: 10
Chris: 10
tuckerlancaster: 5
I gave ten points for identifying the mystery as a Strepsiptera, five for picking…
awild | March 16, 2010You may remember Wesley Fleming, the glass artist I blogged about last year. It seems he's accomplished a remarkable new piece: a leafcutter ant infected with a parasitic Cordyceps fungus. As far as I know this is the first Cordyceps ever created from glass.
If you'd like to see it in person, this and some of Fleming's other pieces will be on display at the Racine Art Museum this summer.
What is Cordyceps, you ask? Watch:
awild | March 15, 2010
Ok, so we all know this is a wasp. But what's with the lumps near the tip of the abdomen?
Ten points for identifying the lump, and five points for anyone ambitious enough to put a name on the wasp, too.
awild | March 14, 2010
To create this video, I fed honey water to a captive colony of Camponotus pennsylvanicus carpenter ants and recorded them passing the liquid among nestmates. The sharing behavior is called trophallaxis, and it means more to ants than mere nutrition. They use the behavior to spread chemical messages around the nest and to create a unified colony odor.
As a case in point, near the end of the video workers are visible licking the queen. Her scents are picked up this way and passed around the colony via trophallaxis. It's how the ants know the queen is present and reproducing.
For the record, I…
awild | March 13, 2010
Theodore Pergande (1840-1916)
Over 12,000 ant species have been described since the inception of modern taxonomy 252 years ago. From Formica rufa Linneaus 1758 to Paraparatrechina gnoma LaPolla & Cheng 2010, where did all those names come from?
Now it's easier than ever to find out. The Global Ant Project is assembling a biography for each of the 917 people responsible for our current taxonomy. These are the researchers who have defined the species, assembled them into genera and subfamilies, supplied the latin names, and refined the work of their predecessors.
Efforts like these help…
awild | March 11, 2010Debbie: Sean Hannity Bugs Entomologists, Belittles-Bug Collection
Bug Girl: Fox News Fail
Hannah: Defending the land grants
awild | March 10, 2010Also, my first ever video blog:
Watch the HD version if you can. The ants are actually visible, if you squint.
awild | March 10, 2010At the time I photographed this little scene (at Bell Smith Springs, Illinois) I was myself unsure of the drama playing out on the oak gall. I sent pictures to wasp expert Hege VÃ¥rdal to see if my preliminary guess of a pair of gall parasites was worth anything. Her reply:
I believe that you are on the correct track concerning the specimens. It is probably an inquiline and a parasitoid trying to reach the gall chamber. It looks like a unilocular (one-chambered) gall. Often the inquiline female kills the gall wasp larva when ovipositing in the gall or alternatively the inquiline larva kills…
awild | March 9, 2010Watch beetle guru Anthony Cognato trying to deal with Fox News ignoramus Tucker Carlson:
It isn't news that Fox News isn't, um, news. Nor is it news that Fox can't grasp the benefits of public investment in knowledge creation- perhaps because actual knowledge is anathema to their business model. But I digress.
I'm going to complain instead that Cognato missed out (or was edited out) on a major talking point to counter Fox's bluster. Fox pretends Cognato just sidled up to suckle at the stimulus teat while the getting was good. A university welfare queen, or something. But that's simply…
awild | March 9, 2010Although this paper is several years old, I still read through it for a good laugh now and again. It's a bold attempt by Aussie myrmecologist Alan Andersen to remedy the dearth of ant common names. Hilarity ensues.
Snugglepot Ant?
As we know, ants are too small and too numerous for most species to have caught the attention of the broader human populace. Few species have ever acquired a vernacular name, in any language, and biologists are generally happy to use the formal Latin nomenclature.
Genial Killer Ants?
Andersen's hallucinogenic trip through the myrmecofauna is worth a read,…
awild | March 8, 2010Alright, Sherlock. What's going on here?
Five points each for the identity of the big round thing, for the insect at the top, and for the insect at the side. Ten points for describing the story.
And a freebie point to anyone who comes up with an idea for what to do with all these points.
This scene was photographed in the fall in southern Illinois. Here are close-ups of the critters:
mystery wasp #1
mystery wasp#2
awild | March 8, 2010I apologize for the slow blogging. I've been under the weather this weekend, and what energy I could muster went to more pressing things. Like patching an unfortunate hole in the kitchen wall from when the doorstop failed.
I also had some minor paperwork. I am being contracted to work remotely for a University in another state, and they sent along a question about what I've done "to foster multicultural understanding and cultural competence?"
While penning the obligatory bland response about international research and my old Peace Corps days, it occurred to me that many scientists who have to…
awild | March 4, 2010
Who's that odd ant out?
While in sunny Florida last summer (ah, sunshine! I vaguely remember what that looks like), I spent an hour peering into a nest of little Dorymyrmex elegans. These slender, graceful ants are among Florida's more charming insects.
Every few minutes, though, the flow of elegant orange insects out of the nest was interrupted by a darker, more robust ant: Dorymyrmex reginicula. Who was this interloper?
Dorymyrmex reginicula is a temporary social parasite. Mature colonies behave pretty much like normal ants. Workers guard the nest, forage for food, and tend the larvae.…
awild | March 3, 2010I understand the product works by converting fire ant DNA into that of other species.
awild | March 2, 2010What was that bizarre balloon-spangled creature?
It's the larva of a Theope butterfly in the family Riodinidae. Here is the full photo, from Panama:
Theope, tended by Azteca velox
An infinite number of highly valuable Myrmecos Points(â¢) go to commentator JasonC, who not only identified the larva but researched the function of the balloons.
awild | March 2, 2010Here's a chart I made this morning. It depicts the number of new photos tagged "insects" or "insect" uploaded over the history of the leading photo-sharing site Flickr. Note that the graph doesn't show the cumulative total of insect photos on the site; rather, it shows the increase from year-to-year. Thus, even though the rate of increase slowed in 2009, the amount of insect content is still accelerating.
Interpretation of the chart is tricky. The increase may reflect several patterns: a growth in Flickr's popularity, the growth of digital photography, and a growth in overall interest in…
awild | March 1, 2010
What's this?
Five points for picking the family, five points for the genus. And infinity points for figuring out what the those balloon-like structures are for. I have no idea.