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Alex Wild
@alexwild@mastodon.online
mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Entomologist, Natural History Collection Curator, and Photographer based in Austin, Texas.
8146 Followers
836 Following
50 Posts
Joined November 02, 2022
Photography:
I love how the reddit ants forum is half homeowners asking for the best ways to kill ants, and half antkeepers asking for the best ways to keep them alive.
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
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
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
A Calligrapha beetle- named of course for the beautiful inscriptions on its elytra- sits on its dogwood host plant. Texas.
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
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.
Happy Mother’s Day everyone, and best of luck keeping all your little ones together.
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
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
An incipient paper wasp nest built under the shelter of a large, partly curled leaf. Guanica dry forest reserve, Puerto Rico.
The different eye colors of the two insects are age-related; the individual with black eyes has only recently emerged.
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
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
A small Lasioglossum in the spiderwort, which is blooming now around central Texas. #insects #bees #Bloomscrolling
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
Life continues for the majority of the planet that did not invest in Bitcoin, including these Tetramorium lucayanum ants.
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
A Texas leafcutter ant, Atta texana, hauls spring Prunus buds along a tree branch on her way back to the nest.
One of my favorite pollinator photos, and the bee isn't even in focus. Which is why I love it. (Bombus sp., Illinois)
#bees #Bombus #pollination #Solidago #Nature
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.
Discerning a sense of size from macro photographs is hard. Camponotus intrepidus, for example, is one of Australia’s largest sugar ants at slightly under an inch long.
But did you see the little Pheidole ant at her heels?
The retractable antennae of Mycetophylax fungus-farming ants leave such a distinct scrobe on the head. Photo from a few years ago from Mindo, Ecuador.
This is possibly an undescribed species. Too many ants, not enough taxonomists. #Ants #Insects #Formicidae #Mycetophylax
Always a treat to see Comanche harvester ants. These are found only in the sandiest habitats in Texas and Oklahoma. #Ants #Insects #Pogonomyrmex
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
Just saw Gemini citing Grokipedia as a source for a piece of incorrect information. Seems like a sign of where AI is these days.
Anochetus rugosus, a tough little trap-jaw ant from Borneo. The color makes it look cherry-flavored, but I'd be surprised if this ant even lets you think about it.
A gallery of army ants.
#Ants #Photography #Photography
https://www.alexanderwild.com/Ants/Making-a-Living/Army-Ants
A gallery of mosquitos, since we're now in the season.
#Insects #Mosquitoes #Photography https://www.alexanderwild.com/Insects/Mosquitoes
The emergence of spring bees here in Austin also means the emergence of somewhat rarer bee parasites. I caught this Sapyga nevadica wasp yesterday; it lays eggs in solitary bee nests.
#Sapygidae #wasps #Sapyga #Insects #Parasites
One of our local Chagas disease vectors, Triatoma indictiva. Texas.
Cool looking bug, not much risk in casual encounters like this, but you won't want to live in rustic or outdoor housing for longer periods of time where these are common
Replying to
@wbud@tech.lgbt That segment is called the petiole; all ants have it (in varying sizes), as the extra joint gives the abdomen a lot more flexibility.
Brown recluse spiders exonerated! In Florida, recluses are rare, much less likely to bite than other spiders, even when provoked, and the one verified bite did not produce necrosis.
A gallery of ant plants, and plant ants.
#Ants #plants #Photography #Ecology
https://www.alexanderwild.com/Ants/Natural-History/Ants-and-Plants
Replying to
@futurebird@sauropods.win A fairly broad diet, including springtails. Wilson studied the feeding habits of this species (as "Trichoscapa membranifera") in the 1950s. https://www.antwiki.org/w/images/c/ce/Wilson_1954a.pdf
A gallery of Pogonomyrmex harvester ants from North and South America.
https://www.alexanderwild.com/Ants/Taxonomic-List-of-Ant-Genera/Pogonomyrmex
Replying to
@lasse@social.tchncs.de Why choose? you could work on the taxonomy of ant-mimic spiders.
Replying to
@antdude@mastodon.social I have, several times. He's very gentlemanly. Reserved. Excellent manners. And he knew who I was, which was weird, but it turns out he'd been looking at some of the specimens I collected.
Replying to
@futurebird@sauropods.win Yes! These ones. I'm going to try to find a nest. Well, more nests. This one was in a living tree so I couldn't get into it withough causing some damage.
Replying to
@mikemccaffrey@pdx.social I don't actually know, but that seems plausible, a lot of these arid lands ants have skinny legs and long tarsi.
Replying to
@RABid@mastodon.world They are in the same subfamily as fire ants, so are structured similarly. But, they are much larger.
@Hicsumus@techhub.social @c_reider@sonomu.club Avoid things that are brightly marked or have spines. Otherwise, you just sort of try them.