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• Post #4289699

  Imagine your species name being a mistake. This is the Cuban Spiny Ant, Polyrhachis cubaensis. It lives in South Africa, because of a labelling error. Cuba does not have any Polyrhachis ants. #Ants #Insects #Polyrhachis

• Post #4283586

  I think it's likely that the Trump regime, if not outright in charge of it, at least approved of the staged migrant "invasion" of Ceuta to use as a weapon against the EU. The EU desperately needs to ban U.S. tech companies, as they are a major weapon of hybrid warfare being deployed against them.

• Post #4154214

  iNaturalist has its ups and downs. But it really excels at tracking the spread of large, easy to identify invasive species. Fascinating to watch the Joro spider spread out from individual propagules: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?subview=map&taxon_id=904334

• Post #4093492

  Southern fire ants, Solenopsis xyloni, carrying a pebble from an excavation project deeper in the nest. West Texas. I often think of this species as a western desert ant, but it used to be found coast to coast and was extirpated in the east by the red imported fire ants. #Ants #Solenopsis #FireAnts #insects

• Post #3907857

  Acorn ants, Temnothorax curvispinosus, in an old acorn in Illinois. They need an acorn in a particular stage of decay, usually a year old and already hollowed out. If you're looking for acorn ants, you won't find them in the fresh ones. #ants #insects #temnothorax

• Post #3357880

  This is Psalidomyrmex. It is an African ant that hunts earthworms. Which, fair enough, is a habit that probably merits weird mandibles. But I just learned they don't need to have slicing mandibles, just grabby ones, because earthworms drop their tails when attacked, so the ants just haul them off like they were harvesting fruit. #Ants #Insects #Biology #Psalidomyrmex

• Post #2997188

  Just some goldenrod. #bloomscrolling #spiders #thomisidae #goldenrod

• Post #2490792

  A gallery of mosquitos, since we're now in the season. #Insects #Mosquitoes #Photography https://www.alexanderwild.com/Insects/Mosquitoes

• Post #2490791

  Just saw Gemini citing Grokipedia as a source for a piece of incorrect information. Seems like a sign of where AI is these days.

• Post #2490790

  Found these yellow sneaking ants, Cardiocondyla wroughtonii, in one of UT Austin's greenhouses. A worldwide tramp ant, but not one we normally see in central Texas. #Ants #Insects #Cardiocondyla

• Post #2399266

  An Azteca ant inside her brood nest in a hollow Cecropia tree stem. What she is holding is not an egg or a larva (those are the lumpy things with the interior dark patch) but a food body produced by the tree specifically to feed the ants, as they protect the tree from caterpillars. Colombia. #Ants #Azteca #Ecology #Evolution #Cecropia #Insects

• Post #2375236

  Happy Mother’s Day everyone, and best of luck keeping all your little ones together. #Insects #Centipedes

• Post #2338953

  I've never met David Attenborough. But I have worked with some of his camera crews, and they are full of stories about what a good dude he is. Like, he'll jump up to do the dishes at a field station.

• Post #2272734

  A Texas leafcutter ant, Atta texana, hauls spring Prunus buds along a tree branch on her way back to the nest. #Ants #Insects #Atta #nature #leafcutterants

• Post #2172473

  A gallery of army ants. #Ants #Photography #Photography https://www.alexanderwild.com/Ants/Making-a-Living/Army-Ants

• Post #1983195

  Always a treat to see Comanche harvester ants. These are found only in the sandiest habitats in Texas and Oklahoma. #Ants #Insects #Pogonomyrmex

• Post #1959576

  Spider or puppy? We report, you decide. #Spiders #Nature

• Post #1888885

  Zoom in to see the terrifyingly sharp teeth on the jaws of this 2mm long Strumigenys ant. Found a little nest of these yesterday under a rock in central Austin. #Ants #Insects #Strumigenys

• Post #1853559

  Since XKCD’s “Types of Scientific Paper” is making the rounds again, here’s the Entomology one I made a few years ago. #Entomology

• Post #1821294

  There's something reassuring about the fact that one of the oldest ant websites on the internet, the Japanese Ant Image Database, is still online. http://ant.miyakyo-u.ac.jp/E/index.html

• Post #1702425

  An old photo from near the start of my photography career. The enigmatic Nothomyrmecia macrops, a rare ant found only in mallee habitat in South Australia. This species forages on very cold nights along tree trunks to catch insects immobilized by the conditions, and I nearly got hypothermia trying to get this shot. #Ants #Insects #Nothomyrmecia #australianwildlife

• Post #1695595

  Drama in the garden, with a bunch of freeloader flies (yes, that's a thing) taking advantage of a crab spider's kill on the milkweed. #Insects #Spiders #Nature #Milichiidae

• Post #1625869

  Found some common buckeye caterpillars (Junonia ceonia) on our snake herb this afternoon. #Caterpillars #Nature #JunoniaCoenia #Lepidoptera

• Post #1445886

  Some alysiine braconids have been lekking in the back garden. These are parasites of flies, and given how many I'm seeing, I suspect they've been feeding on maggots in my compost.#Hymenoptera #Braconidae #Wasps #Insects

• Post #1442132

  Campuses aren't being rocked by protests. They're being rocked by politicized administrators ordering students beaten and jailed to satisfy the political elite. Let's be clear who is causing the violence.

• Post #1359884

  Entomology Job! Insect Biology Professorship, UC/Davis. #EntomologyJobs #Entomology #UCDavis https://recruit.ucdavis.edu/JPF05990

• Post #1174221

  A conservation red list, not of species but of *taxonomists*. Too little funding and too few positions mean we are ill-prepared to measure the biodiversity we are losing. #biodiversity #taxonomy https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/14039058-75ed-11ed-9887-01aa75ed71a1

• Post #1040295

  We decided the word for arranging Halloween skeletons into various scenes in the front yard is “Necroscaping”

• Post #928606

  Pleased with this shot of a field ant (Formica subsericea) grabbing a pile of eggs. Tennessee. #Insects #Ants #Formica

• Post #887816

  Things are going extinct before we even know they exist, is my executive summary of the environmental crisis and the biodiversity funding deficit.