Monday, April 14, 2008

A really useful blog post (not mine)


Photos of L. humile and some other species by Alex Wild

Alex Wild over at Myrmecos has just posted a really useful post on how to identify the Argentine ant, Linepithema humile. I wish I'd had this post back when I was identifying all my samples. I cannot explain to you how long I agonized over whether I even had Linepithema, let alone which species they were. This is such a nice explanation that I may even be motivated to go back and look at some of those specimens again. Ack!

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Brachymyrmex


Brachymyrmex is one of those genera that is really easy (for me, anyway) to identify to genus, but almost impossible to identify to species. The only species I was able to put a name on was Brachymyrmex cavernicola, a cute little bugger that looks more like a Paratrechina than a Brachymyrmex until you count the antennal segments. The last taxonomic revision was in 1923 (Santschi) so it is definitely due for another one. Luckily, it looks like Vinda Maharajh, a PhD student at the University of Florida, is working on one. I sent him a bunch of my samples last week and wish him luck. If you have any Brachymyrmex specimens lying around, you might consider sending them on over.