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Insects Galleries

Ant Portraiture : About 20,000 ant species are found on our planet. The gallery below features fine-art images sampled from the bewildering array of ant diversity.

Ant Portraiture

Bees, Wasps, and Sawflies : Hymenoptera is a diverse order of insects that contains wasps, bees, and sawflies. Many species are parasitic on other insects and are important in biological control of pests. Several groups have evolved complex social behavior, particularly in the bees and ants.

Bees, Wasps, and Sawflies

Beautiful Beetles : Beetles are older than the dinosaurs and contain more species than any other order of insects. My current research at the University of Arizona traces the evolutionary history of the major beetle lineages using DNA sequence data, and consequently I have started paying more photographic attention to these charismatic insects. This gallery showcases some of the beetles I have recently encountered.

Beautiful Beetles

Leafcutter Ants : Leafcutter ants are conspicuous insects in warmer regions of the Americas. These spiny, charismatic ants are expert farmers, cultivating their food- a specialized fungus- in extensive underground galleries. The cut leaves are not consumed directly by the ants but are used to grow the fungus.

Leafcutter Ants

Bountiful Bugs : True Bugs, insects in the order Hemiptera, are an abundant and diverse assemblage that includes hoppers, cicadas, aphids, scale insects, and others. These insects have beak-like mouthparts specialized for piercing/sucking.

Ants and Plants : Plants and Ants sometimes enter into remarkably complex ecological relationships. Ants provide protection from herbivores, while plants provide food and shelter to the ants. In the extreme, a few species have evolved such a dependence in the partnership that neither plants nor ants can survive without the other. Some of these highly-specialized systems are pictured in the gallery below.

Ants and Plants

Trap-Jaw Ants : Trap-Jaw Ants. Several different groups of ants have independently evolved a novel trap mechanism for catching prey. Trap-jaw ants lock their mandibles open and store impressive amounts of energy in the muscles of the head. When sensitive hairs in the trap are triggered, the mandibles close in a powerful and audible snap. The trap is so forceful in some species that the insects can launch themselves through the air by snapping their mandibles on the ground.

Army Ants : Army ants are an ancient lineage of specialized predators found in warmer regions around the world. Army ants are defined by a combination of group-raiding behavior, a nomadic lifestyle, and wingless queens. Although their name connotes aggressive swarming insects, such behavior is only seen in a few of the more conspicuous species like the tropical American Eciton burchelli. Most army ants are largely subterranean and are specialized predators on the brood of other ants.

Australian Ants : The wayward southern continent of Australia is famous for the strange and relictual creatures that have evolved in nearly complete isolation. The ants are no exception. Australia's ant fauna is both diverse and exceptionally abundant, with a host of species found nowhere else.

Australian Ants

all images and text © Alex Wild 2008

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