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students had found. As James stared out the window at the city lights, I looked through the microscope at the details of a smaller world. On first inspection, there was no true rare gem in the samples. There were winter ants (Prenolepis imparis), which I had already pointed out to the students. Winter ants forage only in the cooler times of the year when they can avoid competition with tougher ants. There were other interesting ants too, but all were predictable, species we were not surprised to find. Then there was a species of the genus Nylanderia, the clan of the crazy ants. There are a handful of Nylanderia species that might be found in New York. That one of them might be common was, again, not big news. But as we looked at this one, something about it was strange. It was not one of the native species. WAIT! Here was something big, maybe. This Nylanderia species was something neither James nor I had seen before. It was, it seemed that day and we later confirmed, a Japanese species, Nylanderia flavipes. At the time, this species does not appear to have been reported from Manhattan or even from New York. What was more, it was the most common ant the students had found. It was in nearly every patch of leaf litter sampled in every park. In other words, the students had not discovered a new rare species in the city. They had discovered a new common one, a species no one appears to have really realized was there and certainly that no one knew was so You never know what you may find when you start collecting ants. Our cities, parks and backyards may be some of our most overlooked wild spaces. - © Alex Wild vii
widespread. Here it was, a discovery made by English majors, history majors and every other student that entered Columbia College in 2004, a discovery that anyone could have made, but no one did. Millions of people must have sat on, stepped on and inadvertently fed these ants without paying quite enough attention. We tend to assume common species are well known, but very often, it seems, they go unnoticed and ignored (take, for example, this truck stop discovery). I will hazard there are as many individuals of this ant species in Manhattan as there are human New Yorkers. This particular species is introduced and so is bad rather than good news and yet, either way, it’s a discovery. Since the Frontiers course, I have gone back to Manhattan with some frequency. It seems like a more comfortable city now that I know it has wild places and wild species left to find. If you happen to see me there, you will be able to spot me among Photo Gallery - New York City discoveries The exotic Asian Needle Ant was collected for the first (and only) time in New York City by a student in Manhattan. - © Alex Wild the tourists craning their necks to look up at the buildings. I will be looking down. And I am not the only one. The first time I went back to see the ants was a year or so later, when Marko Pećarević, a Croatian student, began a master’s degree with James. Marko studied the ants on street medians on Broadway and Park Avenue. There, he found, in addition to many, viii
Page 2 and 3: Introduction by Rob Dunn Nearly a d
Page 4 and 5: & Order knows, when you push aside
Page 6 and 7: up what scurried away. Sure enough,
Page 10 and 11: many individuals of Nylanderia flav
Page 12 and 13: A word cloud of ant species collect
Page 14 and 15: Credits About This Interactive Book
Page 16 and 17: 1 Ants What’s the big deal about
Page 18 and 19: and males have wings, those wings s
Page 20 and 21: Shorn larvae fall over like little
Page 22 and 23: While ant nests differ greatly, whe
Page 24 and 25: Meet the Black Carpenter Ant The bl
Page 26 and 27: Movie - Black Carpenter Ants I used
Page 28 and 29: 3 Lasius Ant Lasius Lasius ants are
Page 30 and 31: space. Many more types of engineers
Page 32 and 33: School of Ants Map - Lasius Ant hea
Page 34 and 35: Meet the Pavement Ant Wars happen i
Page 36 and 37: Pavement ants are not native to New
Page 38 and 39: Meet the Odorous House Ant People a
Page 40 and 41: These creatures depend on odorous h
Page 42 and 43: We know they love to nest in mulch.
Page 44 and 45: Meet the Crazy Ant Crazy relatives.
Page 46 and 47: Once they move in, they gobble up a
Page 48 and 49: 7 Winter Ant Prenolepis imparis Win
Page 50 and 51: All that depth serves a purpose. Wh
Page 52 and 53: the pinhole of light shining throug
Page 54 and 55: Meet the Field Ant Formica ants, us
Page 56 and 57: Sometimes their partiality for pudg
Page 58 and 59:
School of Ants Map - Field Ant Nort
Page 60 and 61:
Meet the Asian Needle Ant The Asian
Page 62 and 63:
the area around the sting. For thos
Page 64 and 65:
Our forest is a lot like the car fa
Page 66 and 67:
Meet the Winnow Ant Aphaenogaster r
Page 68 and 69:
Seed planting is a successful busin
Page 70 and 71:
Meet the Big Headed Ant The first t
Page 72 and 73:
Photo Gallery - Big heads, little h
Page 74 and 75:
12 Little Black Ant Monomorium mini
Page 76 and 77:
In our ant stalkings, Will and I qu
Page 78 and 79:
13 Thief Ant Solenopsis molesta Nev
Page 80 and 81:
they feel their way to and from foo
Page 82 and 83:
Argentine ants and yellow crazy ant
Page 84 and 85:
Meet the Acrobat Ant One summer, I
Page 86 and 87:
Photo Gallery - Acrobat reproductiv
Page 88 and 89:
15 Honeyrump Ant Brachymyrmex depil
Page 90 and 91:
School of Ants Map - Brachymymex An
Page 92 and 93:
Agricultural and Forest Entomology,
Page 94 and 95:
eetle (Coleoptera : Scarabaeidae) i
Page 96 and 97:
(Hymenoptera : Formicidae) and Lasi
Page 98 and 99:
Milford, E. 1999. Ant communities i
Page 100 and 101:
Nygard, J. P., Sanders, N. J. & Con
Page 102 and 103:
Naturwissenschaften, 98, 651-659. d
Page 104 and 105:
Muscedere, M. L., Traniello, J. F.
Page 106 and 107:
Predation and Parasitism of the Soy
Page 108 and 109:
Menzel, T. O. 2012. Interactions Be
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