It’s good to know that ants, like these Crematogaster, are still going about their business.

Great pun at the end

This bee was moving incredibly quickly from flower to flower.

Proboscis in, out, gone.

What about those back legs?

When:  July 17-26, 2013

Wouldn’t it be great to hang out with ant researchers like Gordon Snelling, Michele Lanan, Terry McGlynn, Anna Dornhaus, Kimberly [...]]]> Are you looking for a way to learn more about ants? Check out the upcoming Ants of the Southwest class to be held this summer at the Southwestern Research Station in Portal, Arizona.

When:  July 17-26, 2013

Wouldn’t it be great to hang out with ant researchers like Gordon Snelling, Michele Lanan, Terry McGlynn, Anna Dornhaus, Kimberly Franklin, Howard Topoff and others?

The class is meant to complement the California Academy Ant Class, which is going to be in Peru this year. Topics covered will include ways to assess ant biodiversity, methods for keeping ant colonies in the lab, collective behavior, communication and field ecology of ants, as well as photography techniques (I could really use that!) Students will also be making their own ant collection to learn taxonomy and systematics.

You cover your own transportation costs and $1300 for tuition (includes room and board).

If you are interested in this class, you will need to fill out the application form at the course website by May 3, 2013.

Let us know if you decide to go.

And a big thank you to Ann for bringing this class to my attention!

I have an ant question.   I was curious about ant eyesight. Not about their color vision but more specifically their quality of vision in the dark. Is it better or worse than a human’s night vision?

This is a great question!

The first thing to remember about ants is that [...]]]> We have a question for the Consult-Ant* this week.

I have an ant question.
 
I was curious about ant eyesight. Not about their color vision but more specifically their quality of vision in the dark. Is it better or worse than a human’s night vision?

This is a great question!

The first thing to remember about ants is that they perceive the world in vastly different ways then we humans do. They produce a number of different chemicals and communicate in ways that we can only dimly appreciate. Let’s not forget, some ants are completely blind and they get around just fine.

That said, ants do usually live in dark tunnels, either underground or in wood. Many species forage at night, either all the time or during certain seasons. They are able to find their way around in the dark.

For example, this carpenter ant lives in the hot desert. It forages at night and is rarely seen during the day.

To study how ants see at night, scientists have been looking closely that the anatomy of  the eyes of ants.

This figure from Invertebrate Vision, edited by Eric Warrant, Dan-Eric Nilsson shows that dark-adapted eyes of invertebrates are structurally different from light-adapted ones.

Ajay Narendra and his colleagues (2011) have been studying Australian bull ants (Narendra has photographs of bull ants ) that are active at night and comparing them to day-active species. They found that ants that were active at night had different eye measurements and eye structures, both within a given species (that is active both during the day and night) and between related species. The eye area, facet size, and ocelli (the smaller simple eyes at the top of the head) size, etc. were larger in night-active ants.  Reid et al. discusses more specific information about how the ants use their specialized eyes to see polarized light and landmarks during navigation at night.

Have I danced around your original question long enough? Comparing humans to ants is difficult because in a lot of ways it is comparing apples to oranges, plus our understanding of what other animals perceive is limited. Nevertheless, I’m going out on a limb. All these structural differences suggest that certain ants can be quite specialized for night vision. Based on that evidence, it would seem that ants are probably just as capable, if not more capable of night vision than unassisted humans. Of course humans are capable of inventing and using sophisticated devices to assist our night vision. In that case, humans win hands down.

What do you think about night vision in ants?

For more information:

Ajay Narendra, Samuel F. Reid, Birgit Greiner, Richard A. Peters, Jan M. Hemmi, Willi A. Ribi and Jochen Zeil.  (2011) Caste-specific visual adaptations to distinct daily activity schedules in Australian Myrmecia ants. Proc. R. Soc. B.  278:  1141-1149. (free .pdf available)

Reid, S.F., A. Narendra, J.M. Hemmi and J. Zeil. (2011). Polarised skylight and the landmark panorama provide night-active bull ants with compass information during route following. The Journal of Experimental Biology. 214: 363-370. (free .pdf available)

Wild About Ants post about color vision in ants

(* As I mentioned previously, I have been the “Consult-Ant” on the Leaping from the Box website. I answer questions about ants and ant farms. From now on I will post the answers here, and when Karen has time she will also post the answers on her site.)

Thanks to xkcd

And a perfect paper to accompany this:

Hovering is a bother for bees: Fast flight is more stable

]]>

Thanks to xkcd

And a perfect paper to accompany this:

Hovering is a bother for bees: Fast flight is more stable

Planet Ant – Life Inside The Colony by the BBC. Enjoy!

this is what they find.

We had a downpour rain over the weekend. Then today the temperatures soared. Just the recipe for ant swarms in March.

I would have probably not noticed these ants if an observant three-year-old girl hadn’t pointed them out.

Sidewalk ants (Forelius) are fairly small, after all. Plus, only a few ants were active on such a chilly day.

It has been too long, so let’s jump back in.

I would have probably not noticed these ants if an observant three-year-old girl hadn’t pointed them out.

Sidewalk ants (Forelius) are fairly small, after all. Plus, only a few ants were active on such a chilly day.

These ants are benefiting from the discarded lollipop stick left by another child.

Thank you, Rosie.

According to this article in Western Farm Press, the Chinese have been exporting a lot of honey to the United States and that “the laundered Chinese honey often contains harmful antibiotics, lead, molasses, fructose, farm chemicals…”

That last part caught my [...]]]> Do you feed your ants honey? It might be time to make sure of your source.

According to this article in Western Farm Press, the Chinese have been exporting a lot of honey to the United States and that “the laundered Chinese honey often contains harmful antibiotics, lead, molasses, fructose, farm chemicals…”

That last part caught my attention. I often offer ants a mixture of honey-water if I need to hold them for a few days or if I want them to hold still for a photograph. Even though the article is a bit, er, flamboyant, perhaps it is time to evaluate the source of the honey I purchase more carefully.

Unfortunately, just because the bottle says “Made in the USA” there is evidence that at least some of the honey may be from imported sources. Natural honey contains bits of pollen and investigators realized that by identifying sources of the pollen in a given batch of honey they could identify the area of origin of the honey. The smugglers quickly began filtering the honey to remove any traces of pollen. Now investigators look for the amount of pollen in samples of honey and if they don’t find any pollen, it is a good chance the honey came from a filtered foreign source. This article at CNN names stores that were tested and the results.

Although steps are probably being taken to remedy the situation, it seems like it is a good time to establish a relationship with your local beekeepers.

The original report:

Asian Honey, Banned in Europe, Is Flooding U.S. Grocery Shelves at Food Safety News