Microbes, molecules, and mates: Unraveling nestmate recognition in Pheidole megacephala
How do ants identify who is a nest mate vs. who is not? Cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) have been demonstrated to drive such recognition. In the...
Myrmecological News Blog
Digging through the desert to uncover the secrets – and the knowledge gaps – of honeypot ants
Honeypot ants are iconic in the ant world and beyond for both their visual appearance and their fascinating lifestyle. Highly specialized workers with astonishing enlarged...
Sweet but not so simple: How sugar changes the temper of Asian weaver ants
Have you ever wondered why some ants get aggressive over a drop of sugar, while others don’t react as much? In their fascinating study, “The...
More than pheromones: How ants combine signals to commun
Ant communication has long been viewed as dominated by chemical signals, yet growing evidence suggests a more complex picture. In their Focus contribution, “Multimodal communication...
Ants as a powerful model for speciation research
Patrick Heidbreder and Jonna Kulmuni, first and last authors, discuss their recent review article in Myrmecol. News on speciation in ants. They highlight the significant, yet underutilized...
What can ants tell us about speciation?
Ants are among the most diverse and ecologically successful organisms on the planet, yet little is known about how new ant species arise. In this...
Best Paper Award 2025
In 2026, Myrmecological News awards for the 8th time the Best Paper of the previous year. One paper of all contributions published in 2025 is...
Growing Up with Ants
Marlene Anether has been fascinated with insects, and especially ants, ever since kindergarten. Now, after years of interacting with many species, she shares her extensive...
Happy New Year 2026
Dear Readers, The year 2025 was very intense and productive for our blog. We published 31 posts with authors from many countries and many female...
Doing an ant PhD: Nils Schumacher’s challenging canopy ant research
Nils Schumacher is a PhD student at the University of South Bohemia in Budweis, Czech Republic. Under supervision of the New Guinea ant expert Petr Klimes,...
The army ant and the nightjar: it is not a joke!
The study, “the nightjar and the ant: Intercontinental migration reveals a cryptic interaction”, by Carlos Camacho and colleagues, uncovers a remarkable and little-known interaction between...
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