What is myrmecology?
This refers to the scientific study of ants. For example, laboratory studies of their behavior and use of pheromones, field studies of ant nests, the lifestyle of ants, and their role in biodiversity…
One usually becomes a myrmecologist through studies in biology, but many researchers are led to study ants without specializing in them: geneticists, roboticists, etc.
One of the most famous myrmecologists is the German Bert Hölldobler, or the Frenchman Rémy Chauvin. The latter's studies focused in particular on
animal behavior, biology, and science, before he worked for, among others, the CNRS and INRA.
As for the very first scientists to have established the foundations of myrmecology, we can mention René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur, born in 1683 in La Rochelle. He was one of the first to study ants rigorously and wrote "Histoire des fourmis" (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 studies the behavior of ants for their personal curiosity.
What is fourmiculture ?
This is a term we invented to better reflect the reality of ant observers: we're all a little bit scientific and myrmecological, but not all of us make a living from it or publish scientific articles! So what do we do? What do we call the ant-keeping we do at home, on our desks or in our living rooms? Ant fourmiculture !
An ant farmer is therefore a person who raises ants with the aim of taking care of them in addition to observing their way of life, out of curiosity and passion without a purely scientific purpose.
To successfully raise ants, which we also call fourmiculture, an artificial ant farm is necessary, for example the Minora, Artemis or Majora model which you can discover on our site or on France 2 during the program "C'est au programme".