Author: Horace. Z
-
Common Ants in Athens, GA
During my time in Athens, Georgia, I had the chance to observe and interact with several local and invasive ant species. Below is a collection of short videos documenting some of these encounters—ranging from field observations to close-up behavior clips.
-
Breeding Systems of Fire Ants
I’m happy to share a new preprint on the breeding systems of fire ants >>> https://www.authorea.com/users/903412/articles/1278388-reproductive-competition-in-multiple-queen-fire-ant-colonies-insights-from-analyses-of-breeding-systems Understanding social group formation and structure is vital for understanding social evolution. The number of breeding individuals (breeders), their relatedness, and how reproduction is shared among the breeders comprise the “breeding system” of a species. This project started as…
-
a JEB cover article
I contributed a cover image! Although I am not on the paper: https://academic.oup.com/jeb/article-abstract/38/3/333/7927855?redirectedFrom=fulltext Here is a quick view: Understanding how flexible traits (plasticity) and stable genetic differences (balanced polymorphisms) evolve is a major question in biology. Fire ant gynes (pre-reproductive queens) are a great system to study this because they show both genetic and environmental…
-
Art Seris 2 – The Ants’
– This is an ongoing art project by Horace Zeng and Eva Guo – Ants are known to construct massive and underground elaborate nests. The excavation of large subterranean nests requires collective efforts to pick up and transfer soil particles. This behavior breaks down to the simple action series of picking up an object, carrying…
-
Mating flight short film
Dr. Brendan Hunt suggested to me that I should videotape the mating flight behavior of fire ants since there are no good visual materials of it online. So I took out my camera on a collecting trip last year and made this short video documentary. Hope you like it! — Text in the video —…
-
Lab rearing fire ants for research
Here is an illustrated guide to maintaining fire ant (S. invicta) colonies in the lab for research purposes. Assistants in the Ross lab or anyone working on fire ants is welcome to refer to this page. The knowledge here is taught by Dr. Kenneth Ross and his predecessors. I have also drawn from my own…
-
Fire Ant Painting
Apparently, ants can “paint.” These paintings are done by letting a “ball” of aggregating fire ants (S. invicta) walk along with acrylic paint drops. As the ants diffuse outward, they create an exploding graphic pattern. Using different castes/sex/sizes of ants, we can get very different patterns. Each painting is thus infused with the ants’ instinct…
-
Collecting Temnothorax
Dr. TAKAO SASAKI [ sasakilab.ecology.uga.edu ] recently joined UGA department of ecology, started a lab to study collective animal behavior! To help him collect study organism Temnothorax ants, we went up to Northern GA. (With the help of Dr. Doug Booher, who is an ant taxonomy expert.) Looking for rotten nuts around trees not too…
-
Ant reseach in USA
Who is studying social evolution of ants in America? (Mostly ant people here. Bee, wasp people are just too much… maybe add them later). (Featured Image credit: Alex Wild) [ Ordered randomly. Updated 2025. ] ROSS Lab, U Georgia http://www.caes.uga.edu/departments/entomology/people/faculty/ken-ross.html Social polymorphism, population genetics, chemical communication in fire ants HUNT Lab, U Georgia http://www.huntlab.uga.edu/index.html Bioinformatic…
Horace Zeng 