What is myrmecology?
This is the scientific study of ants. For example, the laboratory study of their behavior and the use of pheromones, the field study of anthills, the way of life of ants and their role in biodiversity…
One generally becomes a myrmecologist through biology studies, but many researchers are led to study ants, without specializing: geneticists, roboticists, etc.
One of the most famous myrmecologists is the German Bert Hölldobler, or the French Rémy Chauvin.
The latter's studies focused in particular on the science of animal behavior, biology and science, before working for the CNRS and INRA, among others.
As for the very first scientists to have established the bases of myrmecology, we can cite René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, born in 1683 in La Rochelle. He was one of the first to study ants rigorously and wrote "History of Ants", a work unfortunately rejected by the scientific community of the time and finally published only in 1929.
An amateur myrmecologist is therefore someone who practices myrmecology out of passion and the study of the behavior of ants for his personal curiosity.
What is ant farming?
This is a term that we invented to better correspond to the reality of ant watchers: we are all somewhat scientists and myrmecologists, but not all of us do our job and will not publish scientific articles ! So what do we do ? How to call the breeding of ants that we do at home, on our desk or in our living room? Ant farming!
An Antculturist is therefore a person who raises ants in order to take care of them in addition to observing their way of life, out of curiosity and passion without a purely scientific goal.
To successfully raise ants, which we also call ant farming, an artificial anthill is necessary, for example the Minora, Artémis or Majora model which you can discover on our site or on France 2 during the program “C 'is on the program.'