Author Archives: alexants97

All over the world, ants are getting ready to come out of hibernation! Want to identify which ants are around you? You’ll need my Poster!!! My Ant Subfamily Identification poster is now on sale as a digital download! You can keep it on your devices to help you out or you can print it andContinue reading “Poster Now on Sale!”

This is the second part of this mini series of articles. Please read Part 1 to make sure you have all the context necessary. This is quite a long one but please read it and share it as much as possible. Consider it an instruction manual on how to save the world. In this article,Continue reading “Conservation, Climate , Ants and other Invertebrates- Part 2”

So I am a sucker for data, data visualisation and geography. Seeing as the new year is upon us, I decided to Make a pair of charts and tables just so I could visualise where you are all from! I thought some people might be interested so here you are All of this information isContinue reading “All of you”

I am writing a small and interesting article and it ended up going on a massive tangent about why taxonomy is so bloated and such a pain. The article really lost its way but it needs the context of taxonomy to make any sense so this post will basically be a brief overview of howContinue reading “Why Taxonomy Sucks”

Two colourful species come together but do not form purple unfortunately. These two animals are equally beautiful but butterflies are often more appreciated. When I say that butterflies and ants have interactions you may think it’s a pretty open and shut case. You may be thinking that if the butterflies are unfortunate enough to getContinue reading “Red ants and Blue Butterflies”

Did you know Panda reserves alone cost $6.9 billion per year while the entire European Union has set aside $54 million for invertebrate conservation. Throughout Europe 400 of the over 100,000 species of known invertebrates are listed as protected, or priority species and receive only 0.7% of the funding aimed at pandas alone; this doesContinue reading “A small preview”

Today E.O Wilson, the man who literally co-wrote the book on ants, has died aged 92.

Please share these sites and let me know what you think! Thanks, Alex If you have enjoyed this site and its content please consider becoming a Patron so I can add more content in the future. And check out what I do and where to find me here: https://allmylinks.com/alexants

The results from my recent poll showed that you wanted a site about non-ant things as well as this site. So I made 2 new sites! Yeah ok I got a bit carried away. The first new site is called Everything Else and is about… everything else that isn’t ants. There are already a fewContinue reading “New sites!”

I love ants. This should not be a surprise to you. But I am amazed and fascinated by so many other things. I love history, film, physics, all zoology, space and so many other things. I want to start writing about these things. These posts could be a simple diagram or a deep dive orContinue reading “What do you think?”

On this, the spookiest of days, it is always comforting to know that the ghouls, goblins and all the bumps in the night are not real. If only that were true. Vlad the Impaler (The real Count Dracula) and all those sparkly losers in those fictional works. Thankfully these vampires aren’t real. Seriously, thank GodContinue reading “Dracula ants”

A wildly different post today! In 2019 YouTube creators and members of the community started raising money to plant 20,000,000 trees by 2020: TeamTrees. They partnered with amazing charities that meant $1 raised meant 1 tree planted. We reached 20,000,000 trees well before 2020! The number is increasing every day and currently sits at $23,341,710Continue reading “Team Seas”

Before I begin this article I want to say this: Now, back to your regularly (Not very regularly) scheduled article. Through countless means, many human in nature, species spread throughout the world. This. Is. Bad. For the most part. An invasive species is any organism that has spread beyond its natural range and is causingContinue reading “Invasive Species”

Anatomy is extremely important when identifying species. Anatomy also uses a bunch of complicated words to make it as hard to understand as possible. Not really but it can seem like that when you are first getting into it. This is a part of my process of teaching myself how to identify ant species usingContinue reading “Ant Anatomy”

Whether you are studying ants, have found an ant in your kitchen or are just curious about ants it often helps to know what ant you are looking at. With Thousands of ant species around the world it is hard to figure out which one is which. This is especially true with fossils and evenContinue reading “Ant Identification guide announcement!”

Hello everybody! I have been working really hard to get my current project for the site finished and presentable. I don’t think it will be long before I add it to the site. There will be an accompanying post when it is released but I am too excited to not tease you all! Hopefully youContinue reading “Exciting updates!”

Army ants are just as intense as they sound. They are the Mongol hordes of the ant world. They are relentless, brutal and I love them. They can hunt all the insects in a particular area of rain forest that they need to move to new areas. They build living bridges, homes out of theirContinue reading “Army ants”

So the vote from a recent post ended in a tie which really did not help me make the decision on which ants to write about. Someone commented saying they liked weaver ants so here they are. Your comments always influence the content on this site. Weaver ants of the Genus Oecophylla are some ofContinue reading “Oecophylla: weaver ants”

Hello everybody! I am now slowly getting back into writing these blog posts now that my master’s in complete. I am currently writing a new post for the new year and if you want to see me cover any topics or answer any questions please let me know in the comments on this page orContinue reading “I am back”

Hey everybody! Now I know I have a small audience but I really want to try to do some good to help make 2020 a bit better because, lets face it, 2020 has been absolute pants. Which is why and and all money I make on Patreon in the month of December will be donatedContinue reading “December Giving”

Hello everybody, it has been a while. I am sorry for the lack of content recently, my masters project has been eating me alive. I do have some good news and some bad news. The good news is my project is almost finished so I will be getting back into posting more regularly. The badContinue reading “I am still here”

This is part 3 of my “I am very sorry but my masters project is killing me please have some pictures of ants” series today. For part 1 and an explanation of what is going on please read this post. For the last instalment please read this one. Here we go. To start today weContinue reading “My Uganda trip part 3”

I know this post is a bit bare bones. Currently working on my masters thesis. Stress. Oh the stress so please bare with me. It seems you enjoyed the last post so here is more of that! I suggest you read that one to figure out whats going on! Here we go. We start withContinue reading “My Uganda trip part 2”

Today’s post is going to be very different and, hopefully, enjoyable or at least interesting. I am going to share most of my ant pictures I took on my 2018 trip to Uganda I went on with my University. Instead of just showing you, I thought you might enjoy helping me Identify the species! MyContinue reading “My Uganda trip”

Leaf cutter ants are among the most recognisable and famous groups of ants. Countless people have seen these species in zoos and in documentaries. This post will focus on Atta and Acromyrmex for the sake of simplicity and sanity. There are 46 other ant genera that grow fungus for food so I can’t cover themContinue reading “Leafcutter ants- Air conditioned farmers”

A while ago I hinted at an ant that doesn’t walk in a poor attempt at humour. Now I will explain and I promise you, the payoff probably isn’t worth it. When we think of ants we think of huge colonies of ants running about, doing their thing. Not all ants do this. You see,Continue reading “Ants that don’t walk”

Jonas asked “If every ant was human-sized and you put them all together in space, would they generate enough gravity to become their own planet?” I have absolutely no idea. Let’s find out. E.O Wilson once wrote that the biomass of all ants was equal to that of all humans. This makes our job aContinue reading “Your Questions and My Answers”

Hey everybody, I hope you’re all doing well. In the near future I will be covering ant keeping. I will start with the hows and whys and then go from there. If anyone knows why to keep ants it is the ant keeping community. So I would love to see your formicaria and setups. IfContinue reading “Your ants”