Hello ,

Over the last few months, I have been focused mostly on social insects and their behaviour. Therefore, I have decided to start a new project documenting and collecting as many ant species as possible within South Africa.

There are 745 described ant species in South Africa, of which 735 species are indigenous. 218 of these species are endemic to South Africa! That is a lot of different ants! There are also a further 63 morphospecies that have not yet been described, but for now I’ll be focusing on the described species.

The aim is to photograph and collect as many of these species as possible. With most of these species having different castes (minor workers, workers, soldiers, etc.) this is not a small task. I intend to take photos of at least all the castes that are often found in the colony, so basically the workers and soldiers. When and where possible, I will take photographs of the Alates (Queens and drones), the eggs, brood (Larvae) and pupae to build a full database of the species. Each specimen will have multiple photographs from different angles to enable positive and accurate identification from the photographs.

Time and law permitting, collections will be made of the specimens that have been photographed and they will be linked to the photographs, so that a correct morphological identification can be made. The specimens will be wet collected to ensure that the specimens are kept in pristine condition and to prevent damage. Accurate location, date and collection method data will be collected along with the specimens and their photographs to ensure that the specimens maintain scientific value.

A question that has arose in the planning of this project is “How will I treat species with multiple colour forms and variations? For example, Camponotus maculatus is known to have a very wide distribution and a wide variety of colour forms.” For these species I plan to photograph and collect as many of the variations as possible. This makes the project much larger and more complex, but it is very important to capture the variations to make the project scientifically significant.

Furthermore, I will be taking photos in situ (meaning where the ants are in nature as they are normally), as well as in the studio for clear photos on white, grey or black backgrounds to make identifying features clear and easy to see.

If you would like to follow along on this ant exploring journey, make sure that you are subscribed to “A BugMan’s Life” on YouTube, and that you follow me on Instagram and Twitter, as this is where you will see most of the content regarding BugMan’s Ant Project. Further, you can also follow me on iNaturalist, this is where I will be posting the species on my A BugMan’s life profile to keep track of all the specimens I photograph. You can find all the links here: bugman.bio.link

Weekly Top Shot: Fuzzy Fierce Ants