The red woodants project

Welcome on ant-maps.com

Ant-maps is an Internet site concerning ants and maps. Ants are social insects. They live together in their nest and coöperate to the existence of their colony. Centrally in ant-colonies are one or more queens. They are looked after and are protected by the worker-ants. Once per year new queens and winged males fly out. This is called the mating flight. The fertilised queens found new colonies afterwards. The nests or colonies of woodants are good examples of such colonies.

In the Netherlands come several species of wood ants are protected. The bald red bunch ant (Formica polyctena) and the hairy red wood ant (Formica rufa). They build large nests or domes, sometimes more than one meter high. In these nests 30,000 ants and several queens live together. The wood-ant project, which presented on this web site, aims at maps of these anthills. Generally in the woods, but sometimes also in the city or along the way.

The colonies of woodants are often recognizable domes of needles in the woods. But what is amazing is that the ants move from one nest to another one. For example to obtain or bring food. The different woodant species do even cooperate this way. A group of nests that is connected with ant roads is called a super colony. This wood ant rpoject focuses to these super colonies and compares them. The Largest in the database is 30 hectares large, smaller ones only a few hectare. Of the most beautiful super colonies in the surroundings of Venlo you’ll find in the Floriade. No wonder that there so much attention to the protection of this super colony. And fortunately successfully!

More information on ants in general and the project:

Simplyfied list of research sites and nests with basic data and photo’s.
Basic information on ants and amazing ant-acts.
Floriade 2012 Venlo, the protection of this endangered supercolony.

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January 23, 2010, Permalink
Filed under: en, home — Tags: Formica polyctena, Formica rufa, project, super colony, woodants — admin @ 12:02 pm

Ant-maps > nl > Plaatsbepaling aan de hand van coördinaten

De registratie van nestposities gebeurt aan de hand van GPS en aantekeningen die worden gemaakt. Deze posities worden vervolgens per gebied zichtbaar gemaakt in Google Earth. Zo ontstaat er een zeer nauwkeurig beeld van de verspreiding van bosmieren in die gebieden.

Deze registratie sluit niet aan op die van databases van bijvoorbeeld EIS. Daarom worden per nest niet alleen de WGS84 coördinaten in een database opgeslagen, maar ook de Amersfoortcoördinaten. Een handig hulpmiddel daarbij is het grid van de rijksdriehoeksmeting, dat te projecteren is op de bestaande nestenkaart in Google Earth.

Deze RD projectie is niet alleen handig voor het mierenproject, maar ook bij andere veldonderzoeken. Bij het doorgeven van waarnemingen wordt vaak gevraagd om deze coordinaten. Het RD-Grid voor Noord Limburg (.kml) kan hier worden gedownload voor gebruik in Google Earth. Het bestand bevat twee mappen, een voor het grid en een voor de kilometerblok labels. Van andere gebieden is dit nog niet beschikbaar.

Voor gebieden in Vlaanderen zal gebruik gemaakt gaan worden van het graadnet dat de Planenwerkgroep in Belgie gebruikt: het IFBL. Dit kan ook in Google Earth worden gebruikt.

De RD coordinaten projecteren in Google Earth kan o.a. met behulp van een aantal tools die op internet te vinden zijn.

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March 11, 2010, Permalink
Filed under: nl — Tags: Amersfoortcoördinaten, coördinaten, coordinatensysteem, Google Earth, inventarisatieatlas, rijksdriehoeksmeting, uurhokken, WGS84 — admin @ 5:48 pm

Ant-maps > fun > Moving ants javascript

Looking for sound recordings of ants?

Do you know how wood ants follow their roads and can (almost) always find their way back to the nest?

When ants go somewhere they leave a track of pheromones. Other ants do nothing more than follow these tracks. There are even ants that count their footsteps. By counting the steps they know exactly how far they are from the nest!

If you want to add ants walking on your screen, then visit t http://javascript.internet.com/games/ants.html for the .js code. IE only…

See also Ant Colony Optimization algorithm (ACO) and ACO

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March 10, 2010, Permalink
Filed under: fun — admin @ 9:26 am

Ant-maps > fun > Save the eggs!

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, Permalink
Filed under: fun — admin @ 9:10 am

Ant-maps > Observations > A nest inside a wood ant nest NLLI-482

Nest NLLI-482 is located on top of a small and old river dune in the Zaarderheiken Woods between Floriade and Venlo. I discovered the nest in 2001, hidden under a mound of branches. Today we visited this nest, although the weather was cold and in the shadow was some unmelted snow. The old branches are now consumed by the wood ants and the nest is on a sunny slope catching sunlight. The ants took their advantage and came out to take a sunbath. (View the movie).

The ant mounds are so constructed that the temperature inside keeps warm enough for the ants to survive the winter. In winter you can find holes inside and around these nests. They are created by woodpeckers, fouraging on wood ants. But the hole in this nest is special. However the wood ant mound shrunk a little last year, the branches prevent the top from falling down. So a little space was saved between the top of the ant nest and the top of the structure. Inside this hole we discovered tracks from an other animal. On this high-res photo you can discover all kind of material inside this nest.

What kind of animal would live inside a wood ant nest. A mice family? Or a squirrel?