Simple creatures have no God

hello, I'm Ashton and I really love ants! I'm not sure based on my work productivity, but I would really love to become a myrmecologist some day!

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Beautiful Rhytidoponera aspersa colony I found, I had no idea they nested in trees!

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Photogenic… Charming little fellows, to be sure…

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Camponotus | ©Ángel Febrero

Camponotus cruentatus (Formicidae) is the largest Iberian ant. This is a relatively common species in the Mediterranean forests, and it is frequently seen walking the tree line or the ground.

This species of carpenter ant builds its nests on the ground, usually under large stones. 

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Mycocepurus smithii is a unique species of fungus growing ant, found to reproduce both sexually and asexually through parthenogenesis.

A 2009 report looked for, and failed to find, any genetic signal for sexual reproduction within M. smithii.

Later in 2011 Myrmecologist Christian Rabeling conducted another study, sampling ants from a larger area. It was found that several colonies along the Amazon river in northern Brazil were sexual, though held more genetic resemblance to asexual colonies than they did to other sexual colonies.

Male specimen of this species remain unknown

[Photo by Alex Wild]

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I’m not sure what these Rhytidoponera metallica workers are doing, I suppose they’re allowed to just sit and chat

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Melissotarsus ants raise domesticated Morganella conspicua scale insects inside their colonies for food and it’s RAD.

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how dare you not supply these wonderful people with images of these babies

they’re so adapted to life in their rugged nests that this worker fell over on the flat surface she was being photographed on, and could not get up

[photos by Alex Wild]

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Camponotus consobrinus with more tandem running!

I recorded this in camp and apparently I never posted it.

Tandem running is a behaviour seen mostly in Camponotus species, a process where one ant will lead her sister to a place of interest.

I found it particularly interesting how patient the leading ant was here. She took care ensuring that she wasn’t moving if she didn’t know where the other ant was. These little insects have generally bad eyesight, and are almost blind, and so it appears the following ant quickly got lost and circled some time until she found her sister again, who waited unmoving for her sister to give her a que to continue. There were a few groups here but this individual consistently strayed and got a little bit lost.

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A feast

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Myrmecia forficata queen that I found, her head was partially crushed

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So hi- I decided to read a 10 page paper on the Gp-9 gene in ants and here’s the google doc on my notes because this is cool to me

The Gp-9 gene has two alleles: B and b it is located in a Social Chromosome in ants and as we understand it, decides whether a colony will be polygynous (multiple queens) or monogynous (a single queen)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19Og6auld3biV3nx_fCsXiD4ZRbjHs9kqluQKV_7m8q4/edit?usp=sharing

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Beautiful Ergatogina Formica sanguinea Photographed by Michal Kukla

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Farmers

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The ground is alive

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you are now your profile image, how fucked are you?

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fuck yeah

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Queens

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Just a head