The blog has been put on the backburner lately. I’ve been super busy working on the collection and trying to get everything caught up, which to my surprise I almost am. Within the next couple weeks I should have an update specimen count for the collection and it will be just in time before the 2019 collecting season gets in full swing.

A big step took place the past couple weeks that will allow me to make huge progress and actually start identifying much of the collection. I’ve been allowed to work and use the facilities at the C.P Gillette Museum of Arthropod Diversity at Colorado State University. I now have the space, the equipment and the resources to process and ID a large number of insects at a time which will allow my collection to expand greatly. I’ve also started to help ID some of the unsorted material at the museum and plan on expanding their ant collection.

As for my personal collection, I’ve been going through and identifying the ants. I’m down to the last few specimens from Wisconsin and then I’m going to start on the Arkansas specimens. It shouldn’t take to long as there aren’t a whole of specimens from that state.

These are the first couple rounds of Wisconsin ants I’ve gone through. The last round I’ll finish this week. These were all collected mostly in 2015 which is a few years before I decided to focus much of the collection on ants. I’m really hoping to get a good sample of Wisconsin ants in the next couple years, I have my whole family as well as college professors there, so I’m hoping to enlist their help.