Filed under: Great websites / blogs | Tags: Ant, Entomology, Museum collection, Myrmecology
Just want to share the address of a website I found this morning and I simply loved.
The Royal Belgium Institute of Natural Sciences has a website dedicated to the ants of Paraguayan Chaco: RBINS Ant eMuseum. The website is developed by a team led by the Belgium entomologist Maurice Leponce and the French entomologist Thibaut Delsinne. The website offers access to the records of the species collected in Paraguay with details for the different specimens and tons of microscopic pictures. The design is very neat and the navigation on the website really pleasant.
But to me the real treasure of this website is an excellent glossary which is richly illustrated with amazing pictures. Probably the best anatomical glossary I have seen so far! Thank you for this useful tool.
The website also offers an interactive identification key and description of the different project. I am looking forward to see the future developments…
Finally, if you want to learn more about the ants of Paraguay don’t miss the work made by the entomologist and photographer Alex Wild (aka Myrmecos) on Antweb and its catalog of the ants of Paraguay published in 2007 in Zootaxa.
One last thing. Take some time to look at the animation that I borrow from the RBINS Ant eMuseum homepage, a surprise is awaiting you with the Camponotus.
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generant.wordpress.com 
Hello, could you use http://projects.biodiversity.be/ants instead of http://home.bebif.be/ants ? http://home.bebif.be/ants was our “test version” and will be unavailable soon .. thanks !
Comment by Julien October 23, 2009 @ 1:27 pmBonjour Julien,
Comment by Benoit October 23, 2009 @ 1:35 pmmerci pour l’information. Les liens ont ete mis a jour. N’hesitez pas a me communiquer les prochains developpements.
Yeah, funny how such an obscure country now has one of the best documented ant faunas worldwide.
I have but one quibble with the otherwise excellent RBINS Ant eMuseum. Their Taxonomical tree is simply odd, reflecting no supported phylogenetic scheme. As listed, their Poneromorphs, Formicomorphs, Myrmicomorphs, and Dorylomorphs are not clades.
Comment by myrmecos October 23, 2009 @ 4:08 pmBonjour Benoit,
Merci pour le référencement et la modification des liens ! Le site est développé par un collègue, mais je vous tiens à jour concernant les prochains développements ..!
Merci,
Comment by Julien October 27, 2009 @ 1:41 pmJulien
Good to see your blog fired up, Benoit.
And congratulations on gettign through the Ph.D. comps ordeal.
That is one sexy animated Camponotus!!
Comment by James C. Trager January 9, 2010 @ 4:29 pmRather interesting blog you’ve got here. Thank you for it. I like such topics and anything that is connected to this matter. I would like to read a bit more on that blog soon.
Sincerely yours
Comment by Steave Thomason February 16, 2010 @ 1:29 am