Erik Frank

New wound care behavior in ants! Here we show how ants amputate the leg of injured conspecifics (a first in the animal kingdom)! Interestingly, amputations are not always the best strategy to care for a wound and ants have adapted their treatment accordingly. A 🧵... (1/6)

Save the Date!📢 The Hector Fellow Academy's application period for 2025 doctoral positions runs from January 15 - March 31, 2025! 🚀 Apply for a fully-funded position, work with top researchers, & more! Learn more👉 hector-fellow-academy.de/en/young-scien… #HFA #PhDPositions

Help students attend the 2026 IUSSI conference in Freiburg, Germany! 🐝 Our goal is to support at least 4 students. Let's raise more than $10,000 and show our support for students in our community! 🐝 PLEASE donate if you can! Scan this QR code, or click the link in the thread 🐝

@jmvidalcordero @ebdonana Un placer conocerte! Ahora solo me falta leer tus libros 🙂🐜🐜🐜

¿Recuerdas a las #hormigas enfermeras? ¿Y a las cirujanas? Pues el autor de tales descubrimientos tan alucinANTes ha venido a la @ebdonana a ofrecernos un interesantísimo seminario. Gracias @ETF1989, ha sido un placer conocerte.

@SchumacherNilsC @CassyVogel @MarcellKPeters Ps. Also a big thank you to @myrmecoPhil for his hand collection of the comoé ants! He was the first to identify ants in the field with us in 2015 🐜🐜🐜

This study would ofcourse not have been possible without the help of my collaborators and co-authors: @SchumacherNilsC @CassyVogel @MarcellKPeters and Eduard Linsenmair. The amazing Team at the Comoé Research Station and the students of the Comoé Excursion 2019! (5/6)

Happy to share our new study on the ant diversity of the Comoé National Park in Côte d'Ivoire (West Africa). In total, we found 118 ant species in this amazing forest-savannah mosaic! 🐜🐜🐜 And, as expected, the species composition varied according to the habitats. 🧵 (1/6)

Here also the link to the paper for those that want to read more about it 🐜🌡️ sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

This was my first taxonomy based study! I would not have dared to venture into this field if it would not have been for the amazing Ant Course that I participated in. So a big thank you to @ant_explorer and all the other teachers and participants of this amazing course! (6/6)

Still one day left to apply! 🙊🚑🪰

I was offered a chance to write a piece about returning to Argentina in the midst of the destruction of its scientific system. Here it is

New @mbiojournal: a commentary by me and @kasie_raymann on @JoanitoLiberti @PEngellab's wonderful recent paper on honey bee behavioural maturation and the microbiome 🐝🐝🐝 journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mb…

Still interested? Then write us an email! The project is a collaboration between Prof. Simone Pika, Dr. Tobias Deschner, Dr. Axel Mithöfer and me and the position will be located at the University of Osnabrück (and include various stays with me at Würzburg for the analyses). 6/6

The focus of the project therefore strongly lies in Taxonomy, Microbiology and Chemical Ecology, but also chimpanzee cognition including a minor fieldwork component in Gabun. (5/6)

Exciting PhD Opportunity! Branching out from ants we are looking for a motivated and curious PhD student who wants to study why chimps apply insects on their wounds! 🦧🪰🚑Focus is on the insect side of course, so if you want to know more, follow the 🧵 (1/6)