One By One
byNick Paumgarten
September 22, 2008.
A recent study, done by Columbia Grad Student Marko Pekarevic, showed that ants resemble humans very closely. His study, done in the heart of New York City, revealed that ants pay attention to our human stereotypes as well. The subject of his Master's Thesis was the biodiversity of ants in Manhattan, usually found on road medians. Using Google Earth, he chose 3 main medians: Park Avenue, the West Side Highway and Broadway to conduct his research. The 32 year old, carried around an "aspirator", a plastic tube that he uses to collect ants, for almost 2 years. He inhales them alive, into a chamber, and admits that "they're not happy about it". In his study of the Manhattan ants, he showed that, much like our own stereotypes, ants were more diverse in the Upper West Side than in the Upper East Side. Over the course of the two years, he collected roughly 6600 ants and kept them in alcohol. He then identified 14 species present in New York's medians. The most common ones were the cornfield ant, the pavement ant and the thief ant. Pekarevic noticed that hot and hazy days are not adequate for "anting", because most of them try to hide from such hot temperatures. However, he also notices that on Seventy Sixth Street, all ants go wild for popsicle sticks, Marlboro Butts, pistachio nuts, a plastic spoon and degraded card receipts. On Park Ave though, he couldn’t find any colonies. Two summers ago, Pekarevic has captured Chinese Needle Ants, ants that have never been found north of Virginia. But having to go back to Zagreb to pursue his studies, he left them and never found them again.
byNick Paumgarten
September 22, 2008.
A recent study, done by Columbia Grad Student Marko Pekarevic, showed that ants resemble humans very closely. His study, done in the heart of New York City, revealed that ants pay attention to our human stereotypes as well. The subject of his Master's Thesis was the biodiversity of ants in Manhattan, usually found on road medians. Using Google Earth, he chose 3 main medians: Park Avenue, the West Side Highway and Broadway to conduct his research. The 32 year old, carried around an "aspirator", a plastic tube that he uses to collect ants, for almost 2 years. He inhales them alive, into a chamber, and admits that "they're not happy about it". In his study of the Manhattan ants, he showed that, much like our own stereotypes, ants were more diverse in the Upper West Side than in the Upper East Side. Over the course of the two years, he collected roughly 6600 ants and kept them in alcohol. He then identified 14 species present in New York's medians. The most common ones were the cornfield ant, the pavement ant and the thief ant. Pekarevic noticed that hot and hazy days are not adequate for "anting", because most of them try to hide from such hot temperatures. However, he also notices that on Seventy Sixth Street, all ants go wild for popsicle sticks, Marlboro Butts, pistachio nuts, a plastic spoon and degraded card receipts. On Park Ave though, he couldn’t find any colonies. Two summers ago, Pekarevic has captured Chinese Needle Ants, ants that have never been found north of Virginia. But having to go back to Zagreb to pursue his studies, he left them and never found them again.
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