Today Houston is hit hard by hurricane Ike. In the Netherlands we cannot imagine the speed of the storm. But we understand the risc of living behind see walls and levees. My thoughts are with those ten thousands of people who stay foot.
In an earlier blog item I wrote about the spread of crazy rasberry ants in Houston. The ants are distributed in the suburbes near streams and rivers. Exactly the places that are flooding right now. I realy wonder if these ants are effected by the storm.
The effect from flooding on invasive ants is not new. After Hurricane Katrina the fire ants New Orleans disapeared in the flooded area's. Fire ants can survive floodings for sevral days. By forming a rotating ball on the water surface they could stand days before the ball falls appart. Crazy Rasberry ants that live in electronic divises could drown or be toasted.
There is even a small possibillity that these ants swim. There is one species of ants known that can swim, even submerge. These ants called Polyrhachis sokolova live in the mangroves of Australia. These ants live under trees who are flooded by tides. So, do we see millions of crazy running ants comming days? Or do they flee into the electronics on roofs and office buildings...
Who knows. But this is deffenately something I'll try to find out comming weeks.
5/27/08
Can ants predict an volcanic eruption?
Ant-maps.com | It seems that ants can survive large wildfires. But how about volcanoes? These natural disasters create so much heat and dust that practically all life will be toasted. Or not?
The theory is controversial, but the German geologist Ulrich Schreiber from the University of Duisburg thinks wood ants can predict volcanic eruptions. He describes in his novel how wood ants predict a devastating volcanic eruption in the German Eifel volcanic field. The ants should identify the carbon dioxide before the eruption and leave their nests. However, the novel was fiction and other scientists did not take it seriously.
When ants can predict an eruption, they can flee. But millions of ants, walking to a saver place, tens of kilometers away? What would happen is an Eifel volcano would erupt? Let's hope it happens in the early summer when temperature reaches 25 degrees. With this speed the ants would need at least 100 hours to walk to a saver 10 kilometers distance... without time to sleep and eat. But maybe they do not have to walk that far. The eruption of Mount St. Helens learned that ants did survive pretty close to the volcano. The lived underground. Deep enough to survive the pyroclastic cloud.
But go back to the prediction of an volcanic eruption. Schreiber wrote about wood ants. But four days before the eruption Mount Pelée in the Caribbean in 1902 a large swarm of some kind of speckled ants flee into a sugar work, two miles northwest of St. Pierre. Maybe the ants did indeed sense the changes in carbon dioxide. But maybe there is another way ants can feel or sense a coming disaster. Volcano's are geological events where the earth crust is pushed up by the magma beneath. This does not just happen. Volcanoes create permanent small earthquakes year after year. Seismologists can predict an eruption by measuring these movements. It seems that ants can also feel the increasing number and strength of earthquakes.
The theory is controversial, but the German geologist Ulrich Schreiber from the University of Duisburg thinks wood ants can predict volcanic eruptions. He describes in his novel how wood ants predict a devastating volcanic eruption in the German Eifel volcanic field. The ants should identify the carbon dioxide before the eruption and leave their nests. However, the novel was fiction and other scientists did not take it seriously.
When ants can predict an eruption, they can flee. But millions of ants, walking to a saver place, tens of kilometers away? What would happen is an Eifel volcano would erupt? Let's hope it happens in the early summer when temperature reaches 25 degrees. With this speed the ants would need at least 100 hours to walk to a saver 10 kilometers distance... without time to sleep and eat. But maybe they do not have to walk that far. The eruption of Mount St. Helens learned that ants did survive pretty close to the volcano. The lived underground. Deep enough to survive the pyroclastic cloud.
But go back to the prediction of an volcanic eruption. Schreiber wrote about wood ants. But four days before the eruption Mount Pelée in the Caribbean in 1902 a large swarm of some kind of speckled ants flee into a sugar work, two miles northwest of St. Pierre. Maybe the ants did indeed sense the changes in carbon dioxide. But maybe there is another way ants can feel or sense a coming disaster. Volcano's are geological events where the earth crust is pushed up by the magma beneath. This does not just happen. Volcanoes create permanent small earthquakes year after year. Seismologists can predict an eruption by measuring these movements. It seems that ants can also feel the increasing number and strength of earthquakes.
5/25/08
European wood ants colonize forest after wildfire
Ant-maps | Wildfires are an important factor in the distribution of wood ants (Formica rufa group). According to Red wood ants in North America (PDF) did wildfires play an important role in North America. In this region wildfires are a lot more common than in Europe, so this could effect the spread through the continent. (More about this) But wildfires do not only have negative effects:
Negative effects:
* Fire destroys nests
* Fire destroys the material used to build nests, but this has only a short term effect
Positive effects:
* Fire destroys vegetation so that new forest edges are created. These edges have the best conditions for new nests.
On may 24th 2008 I checked the effect from wildfires to wood ants. I revisited the Maalbeek (Tegelse Heide site) where the fire above took place. I was wondered about the speed nature recovers. But also about the
Formica polyctena I found at open places, created by the fire. There were three small Formica polyctena nests on the east-edge of the forrest. Prooving that wood ants do colonize burned sites after one year.
Photo left: wood ants living in a small hole nest to a burned piece of wood. (Tegelse Heide nest nr. 5)
Other wood ant observations at this place: Nest 6, nest 7 and nest 8
Negative effects:
* Fire destroys nests
* Fire destroys the material used to build nests, but this has only a short term effect
Positive effects:
* Fire destroys vegetation so that new forest edges are created. These edges have the best conditions for new nests.
On may 24th 2008 I checked the effect from wildfires to wood ants. I revisited the Maalbeek (Tegelse Heide site) where the fire above took place. I was wondered about the speed nature recovers. But also about the
Formica polyctena I found at open places, created by the fire. There were three small Formica polyctena nests on the east-edge of the forrest. Prooving that wood ants do colonize burned sites after one year. Photo left: wood ants living in a small hole nest to a burned piece of wood. (Tegelse Heide nest nr. 5)
Other wood ant observations at this place: Nest 6, nest 7 and nest 8
5/20/08
Beware of the running crazy ant t-shirts
Beware of the running crazy ant. Soon there will also be an ant stuff store. To start with there is a 'crazy ant' collection. The shirt here can be found here. There is also an ant-swarm design and a processor eating Nester ant. Enjoy!
5/18/08
Distribution of crazy rasberry ants in low dense urban areas
It seems that the Crazy Rasberry Ant does not like Houston Downtown. Instead it colonizes the suburbs. This fact can be useful for pest controllers and entomologists. The map below shows a general geological map with rivers and streams and the locations where the ants are found until 2007. (See below for the internet resources). Comparing these maps and Google Earth maps learn that the crazy ants do not like dense urban areas. Most of the places are close to the river and streams, also the main roads and in urban areas with a low density. Find a larger map on ant-maps.com
5/17/08
The Crazy Rasberry ant (Paratrechina sp. nr. pubens)
Original at Ant-maps | The Crazy Rasberry ant Paratrechina sp. nr. pubens is not just a Rasberry ant (Paratrechina pubens). This funny ant does look like the small Rasberry ant, but it's behavior is strange. So strange that entomologists think is another species. So it's scientific name is Paratrechina sp. nr. pubens. (Paratrechina species near pubens).
The crazy rasberry ants were imported to the United States in 2002 by a cargo ship into Texas. They like it so much the ants started to colonize buildings and yards. But these ants doe not have 'normal' behavior like other ants. Normal ants create roads to their food sources. But these do run randomly all over anything they get in contact with. Another strange thing is that they do not like sweet food. The Crazy Rasberry ants eat electonic devices, like electrical boxes and computers.
Since 2005 the number of colonies exploded. Because the ants eat also fire alarms and now threaten the Space Center the public starts to worry. Most of the ant controls do not work and they keep growing in number.
Description: A full description can be found here. These ants have a lot of hairs and are red-brown, but sometimes with yellow brow variations. Their legs are long and the antennae have 12 segments. Their main food is other small insects. Why they do eat electronics is a miracle. Scientists do not have any clue...
For Dutch people: Vreemde mieren veroveren Houston, Texas
The crazy rasberry ants were imported to the United States in 2002 by a cargo ship into Texas. They like it so much the ants started to colonize buildings and yards. But these ants doe not have 'normal' behavior like other ants. Normal ants create roads to their food sources. But these do run randomly all over anything they get in contact with. Another strange thing is that they do not like sweet food. The Crazy Rasberry ants eat electonic devices, like electrical boxes and computers.
Since 2005 the number of colonies exploded. Because the ants eat also fire alarms and now threaten the Space Center the public starts to worry. Most of the ant controls do not work and they keep growing in number.
Description: A full description can be found here. These ants have a lot of hairs and are red-brown, but sometimes with yellow brow variations. Their legs are long and the antennae have 12 segments. Their main food is other small insects. Why they do eat electronics is a miracle. Scientists do not have any clue...
For Dutch people: Vreemde mieren veroveren Houston, Texas
5/2/08
Where did supercolony Ravensheide-1 go?
Earlier this week I published some ant-road maps on Ant-maps.com. One of these maps shows the nest and ant-path structure from the supre colonie 'Ravensheide 1'. The structure counted at least 18 nest, including some nest one meter high. Some protected by metal cages to protect the nest against hungry woodpeckers.
Last year some of the nest were disapeared or a lot smaller than before. And today, when I visited the colonie all the nest were gone. Not one was active. Two new nest had been formed in the last 16 months, but even these 'new' nest were nothing more than a ruin. Only on one spot, now marked with the project-number Ravensheide-323, counted some ants... but no nest. That means some ants found a save place under the ground. Where did all the other ants go?
Here you fond a full list of Ravensheide.
Last year some of the nest were disapeared or a lot smaller than before. And today, when I visited the colonie all the nest were gone. Not one was active. Two new nest had been formed in the last 16 months, but even these 'new' nest were nothing more than a ruin. Only on one spot, now marked with the project-number Ravensheide-323, counted some ants... but no nest. That means some ants found a save place under the ground. Where did all the other ants go?
Here you fond a full list of Ravensheide.
4/6/08
Ants and forensic entomology
Original at Ant-maps.com | Ants can help crime investigators with solving a crime. They will tell you if there are small remains from the victim on the murder weapon. But the insects on a decomposing body tell so much more. The insects and maggots tell for example when the victim died and even under what circumstances the body was left. A body found in the dessert with maggots of houseflies on it tells you that something is not right. Houseflies cannot survive in the dessert. They live in urban areas.
And ants? Can ants help solving crimes? In CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode Grave Danger (2005) the crime investigator Nick Stokes played by George Eads is buried alive. The criminal installed a web cam in the coffin and sent the crime investigators from Nick's team to a website where the movie was played. At the end the forensic entomologist Gil Grissom discovers fire ants in the coffin. Because one of the suspects lived on a farm where these ants live the grave could be discovered in time.
But are ants really that helpful? When ants are seen on a crime scene, the investigator must take a note on the investigation form. Not because the ant is evidence, but because ants can destroy evidence. Ants clean everything they find on their path. This does also mean they clean bodies and blood stains. There are cases reported that ants did eat from a body so much that it was hard to measure the victims biomass. In another case ants removed evidence. There are even cases that ants produced an acid on bodies that suggested that the victim was abused.
But not all ants do harm the crime investigations. There is an ant species that only lives in buildings in Washington, D.C. When you find these ants or eggs they will tell you about the place where the victim was or died. Other ants do live in the bones of a body, but entomologists discovered that those ants live there for only two or three years. This fact can tell you something about the time a body was buried. In one case ants (Lasius fuliginous) helped to get an conviction: the ant-stains on the victim and on the boots of a suspect where simular.
And ants? Can ants help solving crimes? In CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode Grave Danger (2005) the crime investigator Nick Stokes played by George Eads is buried alive. The criminal installed a web cam in the coffin and sent the crime investigators from Nick's team to a website where the movie was played. At the end the forensic entomologist Gil Grissom discovers fire ants in the coffin. Because one of the suspects lived on a farm where these ants live the grave could be discovered in time.
But are ants really that helpful? When ants are seen on a crime scene, the investigator must take a note on the investigation form. Not because the ant is evidence, but because ants can destroy evidence. Ants clean everything they find on their path. This does also mean they clean bodies and blood stains. There are cases reported that ants did eat from a body so much that it was hard to measure the victims biomass. In another case ants removed evidence. There are even cases that ants produced an acid on bodies that suggested that the victim was abused.
But not all ants do harm the crime investigations. There is an ant species that only lives in buildings in Washington, D.C. When you find these ants or eggs they will tell you about the place where the victim was or died. Other ants do live in the bones of a body, but entomologists discovered that those ants live there for only two or three years. This fact can tell you something about the time a body was buried. In one case ants (Lasius fuliginous) helped to get an conviction: the ant-stains on the victim and on the boots of a suspect where simular.
3/14/08
The importance of proper field notes
Digging in the notes from the last 16 years I found sites that I did not add to ant-maps yet. One site is the Leudal, close to Roermond. Two others are The Borkeld and Herikerberg close to Markelo. The notes were taken without any knowledge of the site. The proportions of the simple maps are bad that it is impossible to find out where these nest were. Even with the help of Google Earth, that shows a lot of details I recognize.
So, this is a lesson for me and for anyone else who want to make notes in the field: do not think you can recover important locations or details later. You probably can't.
You can find some tips and information about the notes from the field here.
So, this is a lesson for me and for anyone else who want to make notes in the field: do not think you can recover important locations or details later. You probably can't.
You can find some tips and information about the notes from the field here.
Do ants understand the basic principles of urban planning?
Welcome at ant-maps.com. This website shows you how wood ants build super-colonies of ant-hives. The image at your the right shows a population of these ants close to Winterswijk in the Netherlands. The nest are connected with paths or ant-roads. And amazingly the roads do all lead to the two largest nests in the center of the population. Are these two nests the capitals of this ant-land? Why are these nests connected to all other nests in this area? Do they trade goods? Why do wood ants build cities and road structures like we do? Are they that intelligent? And... do people and the ants follow the same basic principles for urban planning?
It took two days to get all the information to draw this map. And there were more questions than answers. To find answers to these questions I decided to look for more wood ant populations. And the hand- drawn maps from populations and notes piled up... and up. In February 2008 I decided to grab all this dusty paper together to put it all on proper digital maps and in a database. This website is an easy to use web-version of the database. First of all to make all the data easy to use for myself. But also to show other people how great these ant-worlds are.
When you are interested in the ant maps, then first take a look at the largest site in the database. It counts 320 locations of nests. Most of these nests disappeared over the last fifteen years. But many new nests were founded by wood ants too. You can also take a look at the list of sites. On this list you can click on the name of the site to get a full list of nests in this area with observations and photo's. Here you find information about the mapping methods, the database and this website.
3/13/08
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