Martialis heureka - preserved holotype specimen.

Museu de Zoologia, São Paulo, Brazil
Martialis heureka - preserved holotype specimen.

Museu de Zoologia, São Paulo, Brazil
Myrmecologists often start new laboratory colonies from young mated queens. These Solenopsis molesta thief ant queens were collected after a midsummer mating flight and are now raising their first brood.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
Myrmecologist Jo-anne Holley marks an unconscious ant with a unique pattern of paint for laboratory study.
Phil Ward and Gary Alpert collect ants in the Cape York Peninsula of northern Australia.
Your intrepid photographer: Alex Wild's self-portrait in the Ecuadorian Amazon.
A laboratory nest of Aphaenogaster rudis.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
Myrmecologist Jo-anne Holley marks an unconscious ant with a unique pattern of paint for laboratory study.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
Marking an ant with a unique pattern of paint allows researchers to keep track of her activities in a laboratory colony.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
Myrmecologist Jo-anne Holley marks an unconscious ant with a unique pattern of paint for laboratory study.
Myrmecologist Jo-anne Holley marks an unconscious ant with a unique pattern of paint for laboratory study.
Myrmecologist Jo-anne Holley marks an unconscious ant with a unique pattern of paint for laboratory study.
See photo in original gallery.
all images and text © Alex Wild 2001-2013