Notices by Alex Wild (alexwild@mastodon.online)

This is such a cool study. A parasitic ant queen tricks worker ants into murdering their own queen, so the parasite can take over the colony.

#Ants #Science https://www.sciencenews.org/article/parasitic-ant-matricide-queen

The different colors of the cells indicate pollen from different species of plants, packed away to be used as food for hungry honey bee larvae.

#bees #geometry #nature #HoneyBees #Pollen

A small huntress ant, Neoponera crenata, foraging along a rotting log in the Peruvian Amazon.

#Neoponera #Ants #Insects #Ponerinae #Amazon

Just want to give a shout out to my 83 year old dad- normally conservative, a former SCOTUS law clerk for Rehnquist- who protested out in the rain this morning in St Louis. #NoKings

When fly designers subcontract Jackson Pollock to do the eyes. (Eristalinus sp. hover fly, Victoria, Australia).

#Syrphidae #Diptera #Eristalinus #Nature

One of the midwest's most iconic insects, a goldenrod soldier beetle sits in a mid-summer aster. Indiana Dunes National Park.

#Cantharidae #Nature #Insects #beetle

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

Temnothorax isabellae, from the rainforests of Puerto Rico, is one of the more colorful ant species I have photographed.

#insects #ants #Temnothorax

A gallery of fireflies.

#insects #photography #nature #Fireflies

https://www.alexanderwild.com/Insects/Fireflies

The U.S. soy market problem is going to cause complications with corn in coming years, as soy is rotated in the same fields with corn to keep corn rootworm populations low.

If farms switch to corn only, we’ll see pest resurgences and increased pesticide use.

Someone needs to explain to normies that the plan to “Make America Healthy Again” works by killing the sick people.

The fine velvety hairs on this Lutrochus travertine beetle trap air like a little bug scuba tank to help it breathe underwater. Arizona.

#Beetles #Insects #Lutrochus

Crematogaster crinosa acrobat ants visiting a Heliconia flower. Minca, Colombia.

#Ants #Nature #Color #Insects

A gallery of Cephalotes turtle ants.

I've been photographing ants for over two decades, and I still haven't managed to shoot even 20% of the species in one of my favorite genera.

#ants #insects #photography #biodiversity

https://www.alexanderwild.com/Ants/Taxonomic-List-of-Ant-Genera/Cephalotes

How does one explain to young people that the internet used to be a free, open place with no ads.

This finding that some ant queens can lay eggs of another species is astonishing. Biology is far stranger than we can possibly imagine.

#Ants #Science #Evolution

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02807-0

So it appears the United States president has ordered the United States military to take the United States capitol, thereby granting the United States a glorious victory over the United States.

Today's photography project: a resh cicada that arrived to our porch light last night. Set it up in an outdoor white box for perfect front lighting with a natural background from the urban canopy.

These are the loud evening screamers performing in Austin this month.
#Cicada #Insect #Photography #Megatibicen

Milkweed is such a clever flower, how it forces bees into positions so the plant can attach little pollen packets to their legs.

The fuzzball is a chimney bee, Diadasia ochracea. Arizona.

#Bees #Diadasia #Milkweed #insects #nature

Do the aphids have any idea what is about to happen?

(Hippodamia convergens ladybird beetle, lining up behind a herd of Aphis nerii oleander aphids. Arizona)
#Insects #Nature #Coccinellidae