6 July 2014 – Alex Wild to talk on Ants
Posted on 31 May, 2014 by Connecting Country
Meat Ants, Iridomyrmex purpureus, at Yandoit, copyright www.alexanderwild.com
Mid-winter doesn’t seem to be the best time to watch ants or other insects. Many species will be passing the season as eggs or unseen juvenile forms and many of our ants will have retreated underground. Yet there will be plenty of insect life to be seen when American photographer and entomologist Alex Wild visits Newstead Landcare on Sunday 6 July to give a presentation on: ‘How ants run ecosystems in Australia and around the world’.
Alex is a research scientist specialising in insects, especially ants, but also beetles, bees, wasps, and various other arthropods. He is also widely known as an insect photographer and teacher of macro photography – his photographs appear in numerous natural history museums, magazines, books, television programs, and other media.
Luckily for us, Alex has previously visited our corner of the world, documenting a good number of our local ants. But his talk won’t just be about ants – as Alex says: ‘Since ants have their muddy little tarsi in everything, though (preying on things, dispersing seeds, aerating soils, scavenging, all sorts of mutualisms & mimicry), the talk will cover a lot of other taxa too.’
If you are interested in ants, insect photography or a good natural history tale, mark this date in your calendar. The talk will take place at 3.30 pm at the Newstead Community Centre. The event is presented by Newstead Landcare in conjunction with The Norman Wettenhall Foundation and Connecting Country. Meanwhile, you can see more of Alex’s work on his website.
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