Hitting the Road: Argentina

Tomorrow I leave for three ant-filled weeks in northern Argentina. Don’t despair, though, the Myrmecos Blog will not go into remission.  Scott Powell will be taking the reins for the rest of the month, and Eli Sarnat will drop in once or twice to regale us with shocking-but-true ant adventures from the South Pacific.  I’ve [...]

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Bees in the DNA

This photo was ultimately rejected for a journal cover (it was the wrong shape!) but I shot it to accompany a research article that used museum specimens of midwestern bumblebees to compare current levels of genetic diversity with previous decades.  Since this image won’t appear in print anytime soon, I thought I’d share it here [...]

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The Slave Rebellion is Here!

Achenbach, A., Foitzik, S. 2009. FIRST EVIDENCE FOR SLAVE REBELLION: ENSLAVED ANT WORKERS SYSTEMATICALLY KILL THE BROOD OF THEIR SOCIAL PARASITE PROTOMOGNATHUS AMERICANUS .  Evolution, Online Early, doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00591.x Abstract: During the process of coevolution, social parasites have evolved sophisticated strategies to exploit the brood care behavior of their social hosts. Slave-making ant queens invade [...]

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Apologies for the light posting…

We’re a little bit hectic behind the scenes here at Myrmecos Blog.  I seem to have recovered from the flu, finally, and that means a week of work catch up on.  That, and I’m leaving for Argentina in a few days.  It’s a conspiracy of deadlines, so you’ll have to bear with us while we [...]

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Sunday Night Movie: Mickey’s Garden

Disney’s pesticide-induced hallucination from 1935:

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