A man stands in front of a poster with various fancy images showing some fat ants, heat maps and phylogenies.

Action shot of the same man standing in front of a poster, telling his captive audience about his data as he points to parts of his poster

Belated congrats to postdoc @ian-oiler.bsky.social for winning a poster award at the RUMP (Rutgers University Microbiome Program) Symposium!

He presented his work on honeypot-associated Fructilactobacillus genomes and genome-scale metabolic models. Thanks RUMP and the RAD Collaboratory!

We have so much more work to do, to study the convergent evolution of these ants, and the role that their microbiomes play in that. But it's nice to have this review out, laying the groundwork for all our exciting projects to follow!

Digging through the desert to uncover the secrets – and the knowledge gaps – of honeypot ants Honeypot ants are iconic in the ant world and beyond for both their visual appearance and their fascinating lifestyle. Highly specialized workers with astonishing enlarged gasters are a particularly s...

The journal, Myrmecological News, also interviewed our first and last author and created a great blog post. The blog really captures the joys and challenges of studying these ants.

blog.myrmecologicalnews.org/2026/02/02/d...

Three ants with giant gasters are next to each other. The one on the left has a creamy and opaque gaster, the middle one has a dark amber and transluscent gaster, and the third is a lighter honey-colored transluscent gaster. All three ants are Mymecocystus mexicanus repletes from the same colony. The colors are due to the different fluids that they are storing in their crops. Because their crops and gasters are so distended, it's possible to see the crop contents.

A new paper, "Honeypots: a review of repletism across the ants" from our lab was published today, with grad student Bianca Nogueira as first author, and co-authors DiemQuynh Nguyen, @adriatica.bsky.social, and @haidomyrmex.bsky.social.

It was a labor of love!
doi.org/10.25849/myr...
🧵

Four people and part of the head of another smile next to a table covered in decorated cookies.

A table full of colorfully decorated cookies

Together with the @brittbertolet.bsky.social lab, we decorated cookies and will take them to the department holiday party later this week 🎅

A woman smiles, making a peace sign, in front of a poster titled "Characterizing the gut microbiome of (Myrmecocystus spp.) honeypot ants

A woman stands, smiling, making a peace sign, in front of a poster titled, "Evolutionary and Ecological Contributions ot the Honeypot ant Gut Microbiome"

A man stands, smiling, holding a peace sign, in front of a poster titled, "Developing a Genome Scale Metabolic Model (GEM) for Fructilactobacillus in Honeypot Ants (Myrmecocystus mexicanus)"

A woman stands at a lecturn in front of a projected presentation, giving a talk in a dark room. The slide on the screen has hand-drawn images of various insects, with the title Host-Associated Microbiomes

Most of the lab attended the Theobald Smith Society meeting last week. Faith, DiemQuynh and Ian all presented posters, and DiemQuynh presented a brief talk on her work.

We all learned a lot, received great feedback and had great conversations with other attendees. @njmicrobe.bsky.social

Six people smiling at the camera in a cinder block hallway

The team is all here! Faith, DiemQuynh and Bianca (PhD students), Lashon (undergrad), Lily (PI) and Ian (postdoc).

Excited for a lot of great science from a group of excellent people.

A person is face down in a hole in the desert surrounded by shovels and other tools of various sizes

The same person is now facing up. She's wearing a headlamp and holding a spoon, with a pained smile on her face

Good fun in the field with DiemQuynh who is learning how to collect honeypot ants while hanging upside down