The Daily Ant
Myrmecology Dies in Darkness
Author: Benjamin Blanchard
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One of the more stunning biological discoveries to date is that organisms like ants are not merely individual organisms, but also hosts to trillions of bacteria. Some biologists have increasingly focused on this “microbiome”, and naturally work in ants is no exception. A few months ago, a group of ant researchers discovered yet another cool…
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The Daily Ant maintains “Formicid Form”, a Sunday ant poetry series. When possible, our Verse Correspondant, Natalia Piland, provides a short commentary at the end of each poem. Enjoy! The Ant (1902-1971) By Ogden Nash The ant has made herself illustrious By constant industry industrious So what? Would you be calm and placid If you were…
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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 fifty-fourth contribution in the series, submitted by Dr. Daniel Singer. To Understand Ant Communication, We Can’t Forget What Ants Forget It is well-known (to any reader of this blog, anyway) that ant communication is very…
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If you’re anything like us, you’ve been spending a lot of time lately wondering about ant species coexistence. How can there possibly be 13,384 species of ants, when so many species have overlapping niches in space, food resources, and other traits? Shouldn’t the most competitive ant species ultimately drive all the others to extinction?
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Well hello there! We’ve been on a bit of a hiatus, haven’t we? We do apologize for any pain our absence may have caused to our most dedicated readers, and are happy to report that premier ant content once again flows from the pages of The Daily Ant.
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The sci-fi show Travelers is a pretty great show. But one of the best things about the show is also its greatest secret: a little ant egg tailored to readers of our work. At approximately 29:30 of Season 2, Episode 1 (“Ave Machina”), we are introduced, for but a second, to some pleasing content:
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Here at The Daily Ant, we’ve consistently found that the brilliant Samantha Bee lives up to her namesake. Bee’s wit frequently skewers the worst of the vertebrate right. Thus, we were truly shocked when Fraternal Correspondant Joshua Blanchard shared with us a tragic comment Bee made in a recent show, laying bare that even Bee is…
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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 fifty-third contribution in the series, submitted by Gretchen Ellefson. What Do (Ant) Emojis Mean? According to the reputable website emojis.wiki, the ant emoji, , is “a synonym for ‘hardworking.’” This came as a surprise to me;…
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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 fifty-second contribution in the series, submitted by Madeline Eller. The Formicid Mystique: Embodied Social Norms and Common Sense One of the reasons that I am happy to be a philosopher rather than a scientist is…
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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 fifty-first contribution in the series, submitted by Dr. Helena de Bres, with illustrations by Dr. Julia de Bres. The Ants Who Prefer Not To If there’s one thing we think we know about ants, it’s…
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The Daily Ant maintains “Formicid Form”, a Sunday ant poetry series. When possible, our Verse Correspondant, Natalia Piland, provides a short commentary at the end of each poem. Enjoy! Four in the Morning (1981) By Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska, Nobel Prize Laureate No one feels good at four in the morning. If ants feel good at four…
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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 fiftieth contribution in the series, submitted by Dr. Helen De Cruz. The Puzzle of Inter-Group Cooperation: What Ants Can Tell Us, and What it Means for Brexit and Trade Wars Humans and ants share a…
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