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
Phil Ward and Gary Alpert collect ants in the Cape York Peninsula of northern Australia.
Phil Ward and Gary Alpert collect ants in the Cape York Peninsula of northern Australia.
Phil Ward and Gary Alpert collect ants in the Cape York Peninsula of northern Australia.
See photo in original gallery.
all images and text © Alex Wild 2001-2013