The Daily Ant
Myrmecology Dies in Darkness
Author: Benjamin Blanchard
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The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the sixty-third contribution in the series, submitted by Dr. Stephen White. “The Ant and the Grasshopper” and the Politics of Insect Responsibility The ants of Aesop’s fable work all summer gather food to store for the…
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The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the sixty-second contribution in the series, submitted by Dr. Carrie Jenkins. Twenty million sisters A colony of siafu or driver ants can be considered as a superorganism. Or an army, if you like your metaphors military.…
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It goes without saying that anybody who is anybody enjoys ants with all the human senses. Taste is no exception. Thankfully, the PBS culinary show “I’ll Have What Phil’s Having” appears to wholeheartedly agree! Ants are featured at the 38-minute mark in the very first episode of the show (many thanks to Film Critic Derek…
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The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the sixty-first contribution in the series, submitted by Dr. Nathan Eckstrand. Supercolonies and Overcoming Self-Other Aggression The ant documentaries I saw as a kid showed brutal fights. Antennae drawn and mandibles bared, ants bit and pulled…
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Worker Correspondant Jason Bates recently shared with us the following comic, by Poorly Drawn Lines, ironically titled “Symbiosis”: Astute readers will notice that (1) this is a highly accurate depiction of the imbalanced relationship between man and ant, and (2) this is not the first time, nor even the second time, that we’ve featured an…
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This intimidating ant is a species in the genus Odontomachus: Observe the powerful mandibles, the large eyes, the menacing form. Conventional wisdom must assume that such a fierce warrior is a natural winner in the horse ant race that is life. Get ready for the upset. This pleasant ant is a species in the genus Formica: Charm…
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Earlier this week, a staff member at Rutgers – Camden Campus News reached out to The Daily Ant with an exciting press release. The release highlights the work of Sammy Schofield, a researcher and undergraduate student in Dr. Amy Savage lab: Schofield’s project examines how fine-scale habitat complexity affects the diversity of species of arthropods such as ants in…
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We already know that spiny ants are cool. But did you know that the first well-documented case of directed, intentional swimming by ants is in the spiny ant genus, Polyrhachis? Maybe we’re biased, but we think you will definitely want to watch this classic BBC Earth video of the ant-paddling Polyrhachis sokolova:
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Imagine that you are a mango farmer in Thailand. You’re happy with your mango crop, and happily head off to the market to sell your delicious fruit. There, you expect to sell out, but instead find that few passerby are interested in your produce. To add antsult to injury, you look at a nearby stall…
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The Daily Ant hosts a weekly series, Philosophy Phridays, in which real philosophers share their thoughts at the intersection of ants and philosophy. This is the sixtieth contribution in the series, submitted by Dr. Julia Driver. “While conducting research in Europe I came across the following, which I have transcribed from a manuscript found between the pages of an antiquarian book…
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Lovers of ant philosophy – that is, lovers of philosophy – will have noticed that our last Philosophy Phridays contribution was published on July 27th (an interesting piece on doubting ants by Dr. Andrew Moon). Such philosophy-lovers will be happy to hear that this time gap emphatically does NOT signal the death of our most…
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We’ve once again fallen rather silent for over two weeks, yet throughout the past month or so, our devoted readership has sent us a steady supply of premier ant content. Below, we present you a list of seven interesting items we almost allowed you to miss!
The Daily Ant 