Ant
This picture clearly demonstrates how much better than me Earl Goodson is at getting clear shots of tiny ants.
With apologies to Earl, I don’t have time for a long post today. And it really sucks because there’s so much to talk about.
Actually, you know what? Go google Adele M. Fielde. She’s crazy awesome. She did hundreds of experiments on ants, writing some of the definitive literature on them. She invented portable nest boxes that greatly aided scientists desiring to study ants. She has a very readable style. Did you know that ants smell with their antennae? Okay, but did you also know that each segment of their antennae smells something different? One segment for “is this my nest?”, another segment for “are you from my nest?”, yet another for “is this food?” Adele M. Fielde is the person who figured this all out.
Oh, and she did it over a hundred years ago. Check out this paper on scent recognition: http://www.biolbull.org/cgi/reprint/5/6/320.pdf
Slowly getting the site back onto an even keel. It's nice to get back into the old posting rhythm.
JFargo said,
April 17, 2008 @ 10:11 am
Ants are really awesome, and so complex.
Nice shot, Earl. Glad to hear you’re still snapping photos.
AJ said,
April 17, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
I’m not a big science person, but I have to say that any woman who was working in the field of biology 100 years ago must have been made of pure awesome!
peggysue said,
April 18, 2008 @ 8:27 am
What a great article. who would have thought those feelers were segmented and each segment assigned a separate function. Thank heaven for human curiosity.