Archetype

Weightlifting ants

"Oecophylla smaragdina can carry more than 100 times its own body weight while upside down on a smooth surface, thanks to its sticky feet." Image: Thomas Endlein, University of Cambridge via NewScientist

NewScientist posted photographs from the competition held by the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council to showcase images of their latest research. In a single iconic image, the first one shows the weight that an ant is capable of carrying and how strong the suction devices in her feet are.

I have blogged about these adhesive devices in the ant’s feets before (called arolia in leet speak, singular arolium), and the very first image I used back then happens to be from the same ant species in the image above.

Foot of a Oecophylla smaragdina worker. Pretarsal claws and manubrium in red; arolium in yellow; tarsi in green (Scanning Electron Micrograph, Roberto Keller/AMNH)

(h/t to P. Beldade)

Tags: Arolia, Arolium, Oecophylla smaragdina

Corrie S. Moreau interviewed by ScienceWatch.com

Ready to rock.

My colleague Corrie S. Moreau, Assistant Curator at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, got interviewed by ScienceWatch.com in occasion of her highly cited paper in Science published back in 2006.

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Tags: Corrie S. Moreau

Homology weekly: Prognathy

I am going to take advantage of figures I prepared for a talk I gave recently, where I had to explain a diagnostic characteristic of ants during the introduction. As I have mentioned before, ants are peculiar among wasps and bees in that their mouthparts are directed forward, rather than downward, in a condition known as prognathy (pro-, anterior, projecting; -gnathus, jaw).

Hypognathus condition in insects (left image from Wikimedia commons; right drawing modified after Snodgrass 1935)

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Tags: Foramen magnum, Hypognathy, Mouthparts, Prognathy

The good old days of entomological journals

Yes, the discrete logo appeared at the front of each research article.

The articles may have been long, descriptive and rather dull (although important), but boy did they made up for it with crazy typography in the journal’s logo!

Tags: Entomologica Americana

Three legs (at any given time) are better than any other number

Blogging has been at the bottom of my list of priorities as I adjust to my new research institution this month. Add a week away visiting colleagues in Paris [yeah, I'm adding this just for bragging purposes] and you will understand the lack of posts.

In the past couple of days I have been doing some background literature research on the topic of insect walking. What I did not know is how big this field is compared to other topics in entomology. The reason behind this popularity is, unsurprisingly, the fact that the results of such research have a direct technological application: robotics. In particular six legged robots or hexabots (they should be called something like hexapodbots, but I guess the shorter name is cooler).

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Tags: insect walking, robotics

Ants, bees, wasps and everything nice

The 7th International Congress of Hymenopterists will be held this year in Köszeg, Hungary, on June 20th to 26th. This meeting is organized by the International Society of Hymenopterists, which meets every four years to bring together the people doing research on sawflies, wasps, bees and ants around the globe. I’ll say these meetings are generally more heavily oriented towards systematic and ecological type of studies (is there anything else to know about?).

Now, the fact that the registration fee includes ethanol and ethyl acetate (for preserving the locally collected fauna) should tell you something about the level of geekiness of the crown that normally attends these meetings. But, it’s professional geekiness mind you.

You can find more information here (pdf).

Tags: Hymenoptera, International Society of Hymenopterists, Meetings

Ho, Ho, Ho?

This is my reply to the nice image by myrmecos.

Tags: christmas, holiday, photoshop

Leafcutter ant of the genus… Paraponera?

Hey look, it’s a picture of a leafcutter ant! And it’s carrying a leaf using its… antennas, that are missing the distal part (wha?). And it has an odd ball-something between the mandibles, and a stick-like thing stuck in the rear foot. And the ant belong to a species not even closely related to true leafcutter ants. It’s, it’s… it’s Photoshop gone wrong. › Continue reading

Tags: Fail, Paraponera clavata

Ants are a dominant feature of terrestrial ecosystems

Ants are a dominant feature of terrestrial ecosystems (and variations thereof).

Sigh. Myrmecologists really need to find alternative opening phrases for abstracts, grants and papers. Myself included.

Tags: cliché

Ross Crozier, pioneer in the study of genetics in social insects, died on November 12th, aged 66

Ross Crozier (© Alex Wild 2009)

He represented all things genetic within the study of ants an other social insects. Over the years, countless of students will pass through his laboratory in way of becoming great researchers and mentors themselves.

When in 2006 the International Union for the Study of Social Insects instituted the Hamilton Award, in recognition of outstanding contribution to the field by senior scientists, Ross Crozier became its first recipient.

I had meet Prof. Crozier just briefly at scientific meetings before, but I was very lucky to sit down with him and a handful of other myrmecologists over lunch one day during a short visit he made to Harvard in 2008.

James Cook University, his academic home, has published the following obituary:

One of Australia’s leading biological scientists Professor Ross Crozier has died in Townsville. He was world renowned for his contributions to evolutionary theory, behavioural biology and to genetics.

An Australian Research Council Professorial fellow based at James Cook University, Professor Crozier was a world leader in the study of social insects.

> Continue reading here

Alex Wild has written some notes about Crozier and his visit to the Field Museum in Chicago the previous week.

Tags: Ross Crozier