Of course I went right for the ants.

The big ants are nicely positioned along the skyline.

At 725 pounds each, these are serious ants!

What, no elbowed antennae?

And of course, little ants…

Note to self:  If all your photographs [...]]]> The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona is hosting David Roger’s Big Bugs sculpture exhibit. We went to visit today.

Of course I went right for the ants.

The big ants are nicely positioned along the skyline.

At 725 pounds each, these are serious ants!

What, no elbowed antennae?

And of course, little ants…

Note to self:  If all your photographs are out of focus it might be time to clean the lens!

Cinematographer/photographer John Brown spent 150 days in the Arizona desert filming honeypot [...]]]> Do you get the BBC TV channel? You might want to look around to see if Natural World: Empire of the Desert Ants is playing. It looks fabulous! (or if you live in the U.K., try this link. It doesn’t work in the U.S.)

Cinematographer/photographer John Brown spent 150 days in the Arizona desert filming honeypot ants, Myrmecocystus mimicus. He was able to get some incredible footage of multiple queens founding a nest together, as well as nest raids, etc.

Check out the video clip about the queen and photographs in the article Honey Ant Queens Share the Throne, as well as this YouTube segment from the BBC about a honeypot colony raid on another, smaller honeypot nest.

With some digging, I found that AntsEngland has also loaded up the entire series on YouTube, starting with the first segment.

After you watch the series, look at the bottom of John Brown‘s website, you can also find a link for a free .pdf file of a BBC Wildlife Magazine article on honeypot ants.

Let me know what you think.

And after you are done there, head over to EvoEcoLab for a new Circus of the Spineless.

By the time we arrived just before 8:00 a.m., some of the ants were escorting the alates back to the nest.

Hassayampa River Preserve near Wickenburg, Arizona.

By the time we arrived just before 8:00 a.m., some of the ants were escorting the alates back to the nest.

These males were headed back to the nest.

Here comes one.

Back inside.

Do you think it is typical to have swarming false starts? Seems likely to occur when conditions aren’t optimal, like today when it never did quite rain.

Not all the alates were giving up, however.

Some were ready to fly.

Well, we are officially at the last of July, so the NaBloPoMo challenge is completed. A big thank you to everyone who stopped by, left comments and kept me motivated to keep going. I appreciated it.

And now it is time to swim into August…

The “peanut cactus” flower is a brilliant red-orange.

The ground is covered with mounds of pale pink Mexican primroses.

Can you spot the rover ants that are hiding the photographs?

Although we don’t often think about it, rain from those April showers is a real hazard to insects as this photograph shows.

Now I like ants, but I think this guy, who decorated his car with ants, is taking things a [...]]]> To celebrate a bout of spring fever, let’s take a look at ants around the Internet.

Although we don’t often think about it, rain from those April showers is a real hazard to insects as this photograph shows.

Now I like ants, but I think this guy, who decorated his car with ants, is taking things a bit far.

Hope you are having a lovely spring.

The crew filming army ants for National Geographic’s Great Migrations series tells it like it is.

And the results of their hard work:

And now I’ll go nurse those Pogonomyrmex stings…

Edit: Now if National Geographic had only included some of the information in this post [...]]]> If you think being an ant photographer is glamorous, guess again.

The crew filming army ants for National Geographic’s Great Migrations series tells it like it is.

And the results of their hard work:

And now I’ll go nurse those Pogonomyrmex stings…

Edit: Now if National Geographic had only included some of the information in this post about the other creatures that depend on army ants for survival.

Ants, of course!

What a perfect way to unwind from a stressful week.

Working in Costa Rica, Matea found that the leafcutter ants worked only at night. With some creative backlighting with a flash, he managed to get the [...]]]> The winner of the 2010 Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year award has just been announced and it is Hungarian Bence Matea, winning for his photograph of leafcutter ants.

Working in Costa Rica, Matea found that the leafcutter ants worked only at night. With some creative backlighting with a flash, he managed to get the winning shot. And also, he got a case of chiggers. That is dedication to your art.

The contest is supported by London’s Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine.

Now those are sidewalk ants!