We want to give a special thank you to Brian Fisher for 19 years of Ant Course! He has been awarded the Golden Sifter for all of his hard work. Thank you Brian!

Ant Course 2023 After two weeks of learning, laughs, and many adventures, Ant Course has finished for the year. Thank you to the Binatang Research Center for hosting and helping us have a safe and fun time while in PNG!

Crocodile skink in PNG 🇵🇬

🆕#blogpost: Phil Hoenle Phil shares amazing pictures of "the astonishing #diversity of Papua New Guinea" 🐜 Check it out! #insects #research blog.myrmecologicalnews.org/2023/11/02/the…

NEW PAPER: Ever wondered why insects fly in all sorts of crazy patterns around lights at night? So did we! We set about recording flying insects to work out what's going on. I'll summarise what we found in this 🧵. Spoiler: We don't think they confuse lights with the moon.

Exciting PhD studentship opportunities (x2) to work with me on social insect-soil-plant interactions in relation to anthropogenic habitat change (further details: tomfayle.com). Fieldwork in Malaysian Borneo! Deadline 28th February 2024.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/13…

A group of spider ants (Leptomyrmex sp.) hunting a poney ant (Rhytidoponera sp.). PNG 🇵🇬 2023.

Postdoc position available, working in the beautiful Cederberg Mountains in South Africa using #LiDAR and on the ground environmental sensors to test mechanisms of species coexistence, working with me, Rebecca Senior (rebeccasenior.bsky.social), Tom Rhys Bishop & charlene! Please RT academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/13708

A hollow twig found by Tristan Klaftenberger was hiding this nest of Parasyscia. PNG 🇵🇬, 2023

Join Universität Mainz 🇩🇪for a PhD project on the mechanisms of sex determination in ants 🐜 with Miya Qiaowei Pan 潘乔维 @ketting_rene Claudia 🕊 Keller Valsecchi. Multiple PhD positions available through the genevo-rtg.de consortium. #MolecularBiology #EvolutionaryBiology Deadline 15th July!

Today at #IUSSI2024 I am presenting “The genetic maps of European ants: a roadmap for phylogeography and species discovery”. If you like ants and maps come to the Amphitheatre B at 11:00!

Some cool ants from the Swiss Jura mountains seen in #euroIUSSI2024 wood ant walk!! Formica cf. pressilabris Harpagoxenus sublaevis Formica paralugubris(with resin!) and Manica rubida Thanks to all organisers and partocopants!! #IUSSI #IUSSI2024 #Myrmecology

Seeing Ant Course friends in Lausanne brought back memories from the course. Here is one of my favourite species from then, a Colobostruma. Thanks Doug Booher Doug Booher for showing me a colony!

Apart from providing beneficial #weedregulation, many seed-consuming #carabids can also harm crops – we unearthed evidence for 72 species acting as crop pests and highlight the need to understand role switching for reliable #ecosystemservice provision. doi.org/10.1016/j.agee…

Happy to share our new study on the ant diversity of the Comoé National Park in Côte d'Ivoire (West Africa). In total, we found 118 ant species in this amazing forest-savannah mosaic! 🐜🐜🐜 And, as expected, the species composition varied according to the habitats. 🧵 (1/6)

New Guinea had several species with extremely elongated morphologies, such as this Strumigenys. I still wonder why 🤔. Near New Guinea Binatang Research Center, 🇵🇬 (2023). Thanks to Nils-C. Schumacher for finding this great specimen!

Like ancient ruins, the corpses of Ophiocordyceps-infected ants linger in the forest, eventually growing mosses

New paper out in Oecologia on ants and fire 🐜 🔥. In « Large-scale pyrodiversity is not needed to beget ant diversity in an Australian tropical savanna » we show that fire, but not pyrodiversity, is key to preserve ant diversity. Read more here: link.springer.com/article/10.100…