What do Tatuidris armadillo ants eat?
Check this out: It’s the first video of live Tatuidris, among the rarest and least understood of all ants. Until recently, no one had even seen one alive. The video is from a new paper in Insect...
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Ant Research Roundup: Parasites Edition
One measure of the importance of ants is the number of parasites that have evolved to exploit their abundant resources. This week has seen a cluster of new ant parasite studies. Among them: Formica...
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Did LiveLeak Just Leak An Unknown Ant Behavior?
Those corners of the internet prone to viral outbreaks are abuzz today with an intriguing ant video: Is it real? Yes. The quality isn’t great, but the clip appears to show an Asian Leptogenys...
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An Evolutionary Transition, In Vivo
Among the most dazzling products of insect evolution are leafcutter ants, which cultivate an edible fungus on a compost of fresh vegetation. The ants’ digestive chemistry is so simplified that they can...
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The Puppy Spider Is Not As Big As You Think
While we’re on spider debunkings, Piotr Naskrecki’s “puppy spider” story is making the media rounds this week, spawning the usual juvenile Nopes and Kill It With Fires! With every re-telling the spider...
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Another Reason Why Ants Don’t Have Traffic Jams
There’s a story going around about how ants never have traffic jams. It’s a fine bit of science about how ants adjust their speed and don’t overtake each other, leading to smooth, fast speeds down the...
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A Gallery of Pollinators
It probably shouldn’t have taken ten years, but I’ve finally corralled a few of my better pollination photographs into a coherent gallery. Check it out at the link: A Gallery of Pollinators and...
View ArticleThe Ant Daisy Chain, Described
You may remember a recent viral video showing an undescribed predatory ant behavior. It turned out that myrmecologists Christian Peeters and Stéphane de Greef had observed these ants in the field, but...
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On the Cover of Current Biology
I am extremely pleased that Current Biology has featured my focus-stacked yellow fever mosquito on this week’s cover! This image challenged me. The small size of the animal required a motionless...
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