This image was extremely fun to work on. It was for an article for Natural History magazine about the triumphant success of so called Argentine Ants. I chose the “pioneer” theme of the wagon, bonnet, cowboy hat, aphid-oxen etc. to make it a very easy to grasp visual metaphor.
After I had done it, I wondered if it would have been better to have the same main wagon but instead of the other following wagons, it would ride through a vast expanse of thousands of dead ants, (as the one in the foreground). It perhaps would better suggest the unlikely success of “sweepstakes dispersal”. Such an image would pay homage to all the other ants that didn’t make it!
But I digress. I am quite happy with the image, which is a combination of watercolor and digital coloring.
Back to the ants: they are known scientifically as Linepithema humile and they have a tendency to become successful at exploiting niches at whatever hostile shore a soft pregnant queen at the brink of death happens to wash up on.
In short, they spend their efforts on food, (not warring with other militant ants), have a propensity to herd scale insects and aphids, and perhaps most importantly have an uncanny ability to intermingle amongst other “colonists”. Here is a fascinating excerpt from wikipedia:
“They have been extraordinarily successful, in part, because different nests of the introduced Argentine ants seldom attack or compete with each other, unlike most other species of ant. In their introduced range, their genetic makeup is so uniform that individuals from one nest can mingle in a neighboring nest without being attacked. Thus, in most of their introduced range they form “supercolonies”. “Some ants have an extraordinary social organization, called unicoloniality, whereby individuals mix freely among physically separated nests.
In contrast, native populations are more genetically diverse, genetically differentiated (among colonies and across space), and form colonies that are much smaller than the supercolonies that dominate the introduced range. Argentine ants in their native South America also co-exist with many other species of ants, and do not attain the high population densities that characterize introduced populations.“
I hope other illustrations like this one will come my way.
I hope you like it, let me know what you think.
Marlin!!! Word-um-up, you are an amazing artist, with such unique style and talent. Keep on putting it out there and people will be knocking down your door. I really like this cartoon like piece about the Argentine invader ants, its sweet!!!!!!
Where are all the Indian ants…with their diseased blankets, as a way of ‘natural selection’? Oh no, that was too much of a political statement. This is so awesome!!!!! Good work bud, keep it up! I’m super excited that you are getting your stuff published! That’s something to be so proud of! Congrats!!!!!!!
Totally radical/rad. 😀
did an ant actually type me this! how cool! glad you enjoy the image. did you check out the ant getting ushered with a to a quick sandy death by the antlion larva? it is in the portfolio
sorry I love ants but they are neuropteran larvae-fodder!
FYI. http://antfarm.yuku.com/topic/10287 has your image because it is awesome! 😉
Oh and I did not see your other ant images. I will go check!
hey antfarmer!
thanks for enjoying my illustration! and your comments. I checked out your yuku thing, seems cool…I don’t quite understand
you vote for captions people leave for the given image? is that what that specific forum is for?
do you get spam from joining yuku? perhaps I should leave my own caption
as for other ant images, like I said before I have a cutaway of an antlion in the portfolio, but the real cool thing I am working on now is a side by side double cutaway of a paussine and a cicindelid larva, showing how they took different evolutionary paths to ambushing ants and whatever else wanders by their dens.
I know I know, I keep focusing on ants as larva fodder, I have to make some illustration showing them as top of the chain!
let me know what cool ant things you come across that need a tight illustration that I can one day use to convince a magazine or scientist to hire me! I am open.
cheers, marlin