It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
A declaration by the European Union of plans to cooperate with India in ship recycling has ignited controversy over the country’s ability to dismantle end-of-life vessels in a sustainable manner.
On March 4, the European Commission published its comprehensive Industrial Maritime Strategy, which sets out steps to reinforce the EU’s industrial sovereignty, trade and economic security. The strategy suggests that the EU intends to work with trading partners with ship-recycling capacity, starting with India.
The EU’s plans to work with India in ship recycling has ignited debate on the status of the country’s recycling yards. On one side is GMS, the world’s largest cash buyer of ships for recycling, which has pointed out that the EU continues to exclude Indian beach-based ship recycling facilities from the EU Ship Recycling Regulation (EU SRR) approval list. According to GMS, the EU has a politically-motivated bias against Indian yards, which universally practice beaching for the purpose of demolition. Over 110 Indian yards hold Hong Kong Convention (HKC) Statements of Compliance issued by IACS member classification societies, but none are included in the EU SRR list.
“Applying a blanket geographic exclusion regardless of actual yard compliance is not regulatory prudence. It is regulatory inertia,” said Kiran Thorat, Trader, GMS. Thorat says that Indian yards have been investing heavily, retraining thousands of workers, rebuilding infrastructure and achieving one of the lowest lifecycle carbon footprints, and are surprised that the European Commission continues to withhold approval.
While GMS now wants the Commission to approve Indian yards and recognize the HKC as the primary global ship recycling framework, the NGO Shipbreaking Platform wants the EU to maintain its first-world standards for recycling in a safe and environmentally sound manner.
The NGO notes that Indian yards still rely fully on the beaching method, which remains hazardous for workers and the environment. It also points out the treatment of hazardous shipboard materials under the Basel Ban Amendment, which prohibits exports of toxic waste to less-developed countries.
“EU cooperation with third countries, including India, on ship recycling, must be based on the enforcement of strict social, occupational health and environmental standards as applied in the EU, clearly banning harmful practices such as beaching or landing as practiced in South Asia and Turkey respectively,” said Ingvild Jenssen, NGO Shipbreaking Platform Founder and Executive Director.
The controversy over India’s ship recycling industry comes when the EU is staring at a crisis over the dismantling of end-of-life tonnage in the coming years. Despite EU shipping companies owning over 35 percent of the global fleet, only one percent of EU-owned ships are today dismantled by its registered yards. Most of the EU tonnage still ends in South Asia yards, which dismantles 80 percent of global tonnage.
Projections by BIMCO indicate that 15,000 vessels will be eligible for scrapping in the next decade. Industry insiders suggest that the majority of these end-of-life ships will continue to be resold and reflagged before ending up on beaches in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan for dismantling.
COSCO Cancels Container Service at Balboa in Panama
China’s state-owned shipping company COSCO Shipping Lines informed customers in a memorandum dated March 10 that it has suspended all services at the Port of Balboa, Panama, at the Pacific terminus of the Panama Canal. No reasoning was given for the suspension, which quickly contributed to speculation that it was another step in China’s retaliation against Panama after the seizure of the port terminal operations from CK Hutchison.
In a brief customer advisory obtained by Panama’s La Prensa newspaper, COSCO writes that it is suspending its services at the Port of Balboa. “There will be no departures or arrivals at the Port of Balboa. Confirmed bookings will be canceled,” it advises.
Import releases will be delivered as normal, reports COSCO. However, it also says that empties must be returned only to the Ports of Manzanillo or Colón Container Terminal; no units will be received in Balboa.
The move comes just weeks after Panama seized the operations from a subsidiary of CK Hutchison and entered into new contracts with Maersk’s APM Terminals and MSC’s Terminal Investment Ltd. (TiL) for the operations at the ports at each terminus of the Panama Canal. APM took over all the operations at Balboa, with Panama reporting that the terminals are back to normal operations. Maersk has a temporary 18-month contract with Panama, which says it will rebid the operations.
The announcement came a day after China’s Ministry of Transport announced that it had held “talks” with Maersk and MSC in China. It said they were “regarding their international shipping operations.”
CK Hutchison and its operating subsidiary, Panama Ports Company, have threatened various legal actions against both the companies and the government of Panama. It said it will be seeking a minimum of $2 billion in damages in an international arbitration it has filed against Panama.
When it was first reported that Panama had asked APM to temporarily operate the terminals, CK Hutchison said it had notified A.P. Moller-Maersk that any assumption by APM Terminals of operations of the two terminals without its agreement would cause damages. It said it would result in recourse against APMT.
Chinese officials have criticized Panama, and reports said they were advising other Chinese companies not to invest in the country. It said publicly that the actions against Hutchison raised concerns about investments, and it accused Panama of legal violations in not honoring its contracts.
It is unclear how much volume COSCO handled with Panama. The company did not make it clear if this was a temporary or permanent change, or if it would be changing its operational routes. COSCO Group is ranked as the fourth largest global container carrier with a capacity of over 3.7 million TEU and over 550 containerships. Other divisions are large bulk carriers, as well as a tanker operator and car carriers.
China Reports it Held “Talks” with Maersk and MSC in Beijing
Speculation is that China might seek revenge against MSC and Maersk for taking over Hutchison's port terminal operations in Panama
China’s Ministry of Transport issued a one-sentence notice reporting it had held “talks” with both Maersk and MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company. While no details were announced, it quickly raised speculation that Chinese officials were reacting to the two companies' assumption of the port terminal operations in Panama after the government annulled CK Hutchison’s concession and seized the operations in Balboa and Cristobal.
In the unusual statement, the Ministry of Transport announced it had “held separate talks with relevant officials from Maersk Group and Mediterranean Shipping Company regarding their international shipping operations.” It said the meeting had taken place on March 9 while offering no further details.
Chinese officials in both Beijing and Hong Kong, where Hutchison is based, have spoken out strongly against the court ruling and Panama’s actions against Hutchison. They have reportedly warned other companies about doing business in Panama while publicly saying it would defend Chinese companies’ rights and legal positions. It contends Panama’s actions raise doubt about investing in the country.
CK Hutchison and its operating company for the two ports, Panama Ports Company, have alleged that the seizure was the completion of a campaign by the government of Panama against the company. They asserted misstatements and distorted facts as the campaign progressed against the Panama Ports Company.
After the Supreme Court’s decision was first announced, Hutchison said it would take legal action and threatened both APM Terminals, the Maersk terminal operator, and any other companies that interfered with its operations. It said it could pursue legal charges and claims for damages against APM if it took over the operations.
Panama decided to split the operations, giving one port to APM and the other to MSC’s Terminal Investment Limited (TiL). Each company was given an 18-month temporary contract, while Panama said it will re-bid the concessions. Further, Panama took control of all the equipment and material at the ports to continue the operations. Panama has reported that both ports were back to full operations in a matter of days.
Last week, Hutchison announced that it had filed grievances against Panama and was seeking talks to resolve the situation. Panama Ports has filed an international arbitration, saying it would seek at least $2 billion in damages while also demanding the return of papers and other information seized by Panama after taking control of the operations.
Speculation is centered on China taking further actions as a form of revenge against the two shipping companies. Reports are raising the possibility that China will launch retaliatory actions against the two companies to punish them for their involvement with Panama.
Media reports have also highlighted that BlackRock and MSC are believed to be pushing to complete the planned acquisition of CK Hutchison’s international portfolio of terminals. The companies had agreed to the deals a year ago, but they became stuck in the geopolitical issues between the United States and China. Late last year, it was speculated that the negotiations were at an impasse. The new speculation is that the companies were pursuing a move to carve up the portfolio, permitting COSCO to take the lead on ports viewed as critical to China. It is unclear if China’s dissatisfaction over the outcome in Panama has increased the opposition to the sale of the portfolio of terminal operations, even if COSCO could have a leading position.
OOCL Giant Loses Boxes Overboard in Northern Pacific
OOCL, which was delivered in January 2025, is reporting a container loss and shifted stacks during its Pacific crossing (OOCL)
Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) reports that one of its ultra-large container vessels has suffered a significant container incident in the Northern Pacific as it was traveling toward the United States. The OOCL Sunflower, which has a capacity of 16,828 TEU, lost 57 containers overboard with additional damage on the vessel, but the full extent of the incident will not be known until a survey can be completed once the vessel reaches port.
One of the company’s newest containerships, the 165,321 dwt vessel, was the third in the company’s new series of ULCVs delivered at Dalian COSCO KHI Ship Engineering Co. (DACKS) in January 2025. The ship is 367 meters (1,204 feet) in length. It had departed Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in late February after beginning its voyage in China.
The U.S. Coast Guard notified the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on March 9, saying the incident happened on March 3 near the southwestern tip of the Aleutian Islands.
The initial assessment is that 57 containers went overboard in heavy seas. Reports indicate that additional containers shifted or were damaged but remained on deck.
“The crew is unable to make a final assessment of the damages due to safety concerns, and intends to perform a full evaluation in port upon arrival to the Port of Long Beach on March 12,” according to the report filed with NOAA.
Starting in January 2026, the International Maritime Organization’s new regulations for mandatory reporting of lost containers entered into force. Ships are required to report the incident to the nearest coastal state as well as their flag state, in this case Hong Kong, and to provide an assessment of damage. They also must alert other nearby ships to the danger.
The OOCL Sunflower is currently nearing California, where the U.S. Coast Guard’s Sector Los Angeles/Long Beach will begin the survey to assess the dangers and damage to the ship or its cargo.
The losses of containers at sea have generally been declining in recent years, according to data from the World Shipping Council. Its report for 2025 said 576 containers were lost in 2024, compared to a running 10-year average of 1,274 containers per year. Ships in 2024 were challenged by heavy weather as they were diverting around Africa. It has been several years since the major incidents in the Northern Pacific, including the ONE Apus in 2020 and several Maersk ships that experienced losses. The industry has been working to improve the prediction of vessel motion and the management of dangerous roll situations.
Chile’s Kast, most right-wing president since Pinochet, takes office
Chilean hard-right politician Jose Antonio Kast is set to be inaugurated as president on March 11 - Copyright AFP Evaristo Sa
Axl HERNANDEZ
Chile’s most right-wing president in over three decades, Jose Antonio Kast, will be sworn in on Wednesday on a promise to tackle surging rates of violent crime and carry out mass migrant deportations.
Chile is the latest Latin American country to lurch to the right as voters back law-and-order candidates to fight the spread of organized crime.
Kast, 60, trounced Jeannette Jara, a communist, in December’s election run-off to clinch the presidency on his third attempt.
He is Chile’s most hardline leader since the brutal 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet — whom Kast greatly admires.
Last week, Kast was among a dozen right-wing allies of US President Donald Trump who gathered in Florida to seal a new US-led “Counter Cartel” military coalition.
The trained lawyer, whose election was cheered by Washington, has also amplified US concerns over Chinese investment in Latin America, where Trump insists on calling the shots.
The ultraconservative father of nine borrowed from Trump’s playbook on the campaign trail, vowing to deport hundreds of thousands of mostly Venezuelan irregular migrants and seal the northern border.
The new president will represent “a conservative right wing unlike anything seen since the return to democracy (in 1990),” Rodrigo Arellano, a political analyst at Chile’s University of Development, told AFP.
– Cracking down –
Kast has promised to moved fast to tamp down a surge in murders, kidnappings and extortion widely blamed on gangs from Venezuela and other Latin American countries.
The crime surge in what remains one of the region’s safest countries has happened in tandem with a doubling of the immigrant population since 2017.
Kast wants to give the police more firepower, deploy troops in crime hotspots and deport large numbers of undocumented migrants.
His proposals resonate with Luis Lapierre, a 59-year-old telecommunications operator from the capital Santiago.
“When it gets dark, everything closes because you could get robbed. Kast is going to crack down because we need to crack down,” Lapierre said.
Kast will be sworn in before Congress in the central coastal city of Valparaiso.
Several right-wing leaders will attend his inauguration, including Argentina’s firebrand Javier Milei, Rodrigo Paz of neighboring Bolivia and gang-busting Daniel Noboa of Ecuador.
Brazil’s left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva canceled his travel plans at the last minute, without explanation.
– No quick solutions –
The run-up to Kast’s inauguration was clouded by a clash between him and outgoing left-wing president Gabriel Boric over a Chinese project to link Hong Kong and Chile via a submarine fiber optic cable.
Washington claims the project is a threat to regional security.
Kast last week accused Boric of withholding information about the project and briefly suspended cooperation with Boric on the transfer of power.
The spat caused unease in a country with a tradition of political cordiality, even between ideological foes.
On the campaign trial, Kast played it safe, dodging questions about his admiration for Pinochet and his stated opposition to abortion, including in cases of rape and risk to the mother’s life.
He also refused to detail how he would fulfill his promise to expel more than 340,000 undocumented migrants and cut public spending by $6 billion without slashing social benefits.
Arellano warned that Kast would face pressure to quickly produce results to problems that “don’t have quick solutions.”
Some of his cabinet choices sparked outcry from the opposition and rights groups.
He named two lawyers that defended Pinochet’s rule to the defense and justice portfolios, and the incoming women’s affairs minister is an evangelical anti-abortion activist.
Political scientist Alejandro Olivares, of the University of Chile, warned that Kast’s cabinet has “very little experience in negotiation and political maneuvering” which could slow his agenda in Congress.
The campaign of former leftist president Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010 and 2014-2018) to become the next UN Secretary-General could also become a political football between the left and right.
Kast has so far given no indication of whether he will support her candidacy.
UMD entomologist helps bring the world’s ant diversity to life in 3D imagery
Researchers leveraged advanced technologies and artificial intelligence to hasten the process of generating 2,000 3D digital ant images. Now, a class of UMD computer science majors is working to bring the data to life.
A 3D model of a soldier ant, showing its morphology in very high detail. Portions of its exoskeleton have been digitally removed, revealing high-resolution renderings of its muscles, nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, and stinger apparatus.
For more than a decade, Evan Economo’s lab has been using micro-CT machines to scan insect specimens. The resulting X-ray images help researchers study the form and structure of insects—a subfield of entomology known as morphology—but the process is costly and time-consuming.
“One limitation is that you can get this rich 3D dataset, but it could take 10 hours to scan one specimen,” explained Economo, who chairs the University of Maryland’s Department of Entomology and holds the James B. Gahan and Margaret H. Gahan Professorship.
As a senior author of a paper published in the journal Nature Methods on March 5, 2026, Economo tested a high-tech workflow to speed up their efforts. A research team co-led by Economo and Thomas van de Kamp at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany combined a Synchrotron particle accelerator, X-ray scanning, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI) to create interactive digital images representing 800 different ant species.
Ultimately, these technologies enabled the team to drastically reduce the time it takes to scan specimens and transform raw image files into high-resolution 3D models.
“We’ve estimated that if we were to carry out this project with a lab-based CT scanner, it would take six years of continuous operation,” said Julian Katzke, the study’s first author and graduate of Economo’s lab at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan. “With the setup at KIT, we scanned 2,000 specimens in a single week.”
Dubbed Antscan, this project could serve as a blueprint for future digitization efforts—not just for ants, but for a wide variety of species. The raw files for constructing 3D models are free for anyone to download, and a built-in viewer of every ant allows for easy access to the finished 3D images.
“The value of this study is not only about ants—it's much broader,” said Economo, who is now an adjunct professor at OIST in addition to his UMD role. “When specimens are digitized, we can build libraries of organisms that can streamline their use from scientific laboratories to classrooms to Hollywood studios.”
‘A living library’
To build such an expansive digital library, the research team sourced ethanol-preserved ant specimens from partner institutions, museum collections and experts around the world. After the researchers sorted the specimens by species and caste, they brought them to KIT for high-throughput X-ray micro-CT scanning, which is comparable to medical CT scans but in much higher magnification.
A synchrotron particle accelerator produced a high-intensity X-ray beam to rapidly scan a huge number of specimens, and a robotic sample changer rotated and swapped out the specimens every 30 seconds. This enabled the creation of 2D image stacks that could then be used to construct 3D models.
While useful, the raw image files depicted ant specimens in contorted poses—a far cry from the lifelike models that researchers hoped to build. As a follow-up to Antscan, students in UMD Computer Science Associate Professor James Purtilo’s CMSC 435: “Software Engineering” course are using AI to automate the process of “pose estimation,” enabling awkward ant poses to be transformed into natural ones that might be seen in the wild.
“This collaboration was a great opportunity for us,” Purtilo said. “A capstone is intended to challenge students to integrate skills, function as an effective team and demonstrate their ability to solve real problems. And this problem was a doozy.”
Antscan’s 3D images reveal internal structures like muscles, nervous systems, digestive systems and stingers at micrometer resolution. The models can easily be animated or incorporated into virtual reality worlds for research, education or entertainment.
“To do this manually would have taken years, so without these computational tools it basically would never have been done,” Economo said. “Now, we are making large strides toward creating a living library of interactive models corresponding to Earth’s biodiversity. AI will enable us to explore the diversity of life and share it with the world.”
Antscan in action
The database has already begun to demonstrate its scientific value. Economo was the senior author of a paper published in the journal Science Advances on December 19, 2025, in which researchers used Antscan data to explore whether ant colonies would fare better with a higher number of weaker workers or fewer, more robust workers.
Economo and collaborators studied the correlation between cuticle volume, colony size and colony diversification across more than 500 ant species. The cuticle, which forms the protective outer layer of the exoskeleton, is nutritionally expensive in nitrogen and various minerals, meaning that thicker armor requires a greater investment of resources per ant.
The team found a strong negative correlation between cuticle volume and colony size, suggesting that prioritizing the quantity of ants over the quality of their armor facilitates the development of larger and more diverse ant societies.
In this case, Antscan enabled researchers to take a closer look at cuticle volume, which has been difficult to measure prior to these models. The Antscan project also covered the same ant species as a June 2025 study in the journal Cell, co-authored by Economo, that produced a set of high-quality ant genomes. Combined, these studies could enable more complex research into the relationship between morphological data and genomic variation.
Given their high fidelity, the scans could someday even be used to train machine learning models to accurately detect ants in the field for observational studies of their behavior. Going forward, Economo plans to scan more specimens into the system while continuing to work with UMD computer science students to apply these AI techniques to new datasets.
“This work moves us further into the big data era of capturing, analyzing and sharing organismal shape and form,” Economo said. “The potential for integrating these data with other data types and technologies is immense and very exciting.”
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Their paper, “High-throughput phenomics of global ant biodiversity,” was published in the journal Nature Methods on March 5, 2026.
This article was adapted from text provided by the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.
This research was supported by the German Ministry for Research and Education; the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts Baden-Württemberg; the German Research Foundation (Grant Nos. INST 35/1503-1 FUGG and 502787686); the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University; the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant Nos. 18K14768, 21K06326 and 22KJ3077); the Australian Research Council (Award No. IC 180100008); HUN-REN Hungarian Research and the National Research, Development, and Innovation Fund (Grant No. K 147781); the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (Grant No. 301495/2019-0); the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, a joint initiative of l’Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, the European Union, the Global Environment Facility, the government of Japan and the World Bank; the U.S. National Science Foundation (Grant Nos. DEB-1932467, DEB 1927161 and IOS-2128304); the Italian Ministry for University and Research; the Environment and Conservation Fund in Hong Kong (Award No. Nb. ECF 137/2020); and Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia. This article does not necessarily reflect the views of these organizations.
High-throughput phenomics of global ant biodiversity
Article Publication Date
5-Mar-2026
Reconstructing the world’s ant diversity in 3D
Antscan provides open access to high-resolution micro-CT scans of 800 different ant species and a revolutionary blueprint for large-scale digitization of small organisms.
Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Graduate University
A 3D model of a soldier ant, showing its morphology in very high detail. Portions of its exoskeleton have been digitally removed, revealing high-resolution renderings of its muscles, nervous system, gastrointestinal tract, and stinger apparatus.
The shape of an organism is the first way we experience most species and the subject of one of the oldest pursuits in biology. However, the application of big data and computational methods for studying organismal shape has been held back by key technical bottlenecks, making it difficult to capture and share accurate 3D morphological data on large scales.
Now, researchers have broken this bottleneck with a project on ants, small but critical organisms in many ecosystems around the world. Using modern technology, researchers have generated and released a giant and freely available database of over 2000 3D ant models. The project, Antscan, used high-throughput X-ray micro-CT scanning (similar to medical CT scans but in much higher magnification) powered by a synchrotron particle accelerator to rapidly scan a huge number of specimens. These 3D images don’t merely show the exterior exoskeleton of the ants, but also reveal their internal structures like muscles, nervous system, digestive system, and stingers at micrometer resolution. The interdisciplinary work is the culmination of a long project co-led by researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany and involving numerous collaborators from around the world. A new paper in Nature Methods presents both the data and the workflow used to acquire it, providing a blueprint for future large-scale quantification projects.
“This work moves us further into the big data era of capturing, analyzing, and sharing organismal shape and form,” says Professor Evan Economo of the Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit at OIST. Antscan adds to the growing collection of major resources on ants tied to OIST, including comprehensive data on the spread of all ant species published in 2022 and high-quality genomes covering most ant genera published last year. And in a recent Science Advances study, the researchers used Antscan data to investigate the fundamental balance of quantity versus quality in organizing ant colonies, finding strong proof that prioritizing the nutritionally cheap ants over more heavily armored and ‘expensive’ ants facilitates the development of larger, more sophisticated, and more resilient ant societies. “The potential for integrating this data is immense and very exciting,” says Economo.
An open library of life
The computational study of morphology, especially in small-sized, diverse groups like ants, has been hindered by the very complexity it aims to capture. Ant specimens are typically collected by hand, but while the traditional method of drying and mounting them preserves their rigid, external exoskeletons, their internal organs deteriorate over time. Another major challenge is size. Many species are barely visible to the naked eye, and accurately quantifying their morphology in 3D requires sophisticated microscopy like micro-CT scans. But because CT scans are both time-consuming and expensive, many species have been excluded from detailed analysis. “If we were to carry out this project with a lab-based CT scanner, it would take around six years of continuous operation. With our setup, we scanned 2000 specimens in a single week,” says first author and OIST graduate Dr. Julian Katzke.
Antscan is the product of close collaboration between OIST, KIT, and the global community of ant researchers. “At times, this work involved our entire lab — we sat for two weeks straight sorting each ant by hand after a full month of cataloging,” recalls Katzke. OIST facilitated the collection of ethanol-preserved ants from countless partner institutions, museum collections, and experts around the world, sorted them all by species and caste, and standardized the metadata, ensuring accurate and fair labelling of each specimen, including who collected the ant, where, and when. Standardized trays of vials with individual ants were then transported to KIT for imaging in their high-throughput synchrotron micro-CT facility. Here, a particle accelerator producing a high-intensity X-ray beam combined with a robot arm for automatically swapping vials produced 3000 negative 2D images of each individual ant, which were then reconstructed into a 3D model, or tomogram.
A key feature of Antscan is its accessibility. All raw files are freely available for anyone to download, and the portal features a built-in viewer for each ant, enabling easy online access to the 3D models. “One of our goals was to democratize access to high-resolution micro-CT scans, which can be prohibitively expensive, especially for smaller institutions or non-institutional experts like citizen scientists, local collectors, or artists and educators,” says Katzke. With the ants’ exoskeleton and musculature captured in high resolution, scientists and artists alike can better model ant movement, both to study locomotion and to create more realistic depictions in multimedia. Katzke concludes: “To me, that’s the most exciting part of the project: opening up the database to a potentially infinite variety of perspectives. I’m thrilled to see how other people will use this data in ways that I couldn’t have imagined.”
High-throughput phenomics of global ant biodiversity
Article Publication Date
5-Mar-2026
Example renderings based on data from the Antscan database, here showing an army ant (Eciton hamatum) sub-soldier. (a) shows the full ant, painted with realistic coloring. (b) shows a cross-section of the internal structures, revealing how much of the internal space is occupied by muscles (red). (c) shows the same cross-section, but with muscles removed, revealing the digestive tract (green) and nervous system (blue). (d-f) show zoomed-in renderings of the brain, gut, and sting apparatus.
Credit
Katzke et al., 2026
Four Okinawan ants reproduced from Antscan data:Odontomachus kuroiwae (large left),Diacammacf.indicum (large right),Pristomyrmex punctatus (small left),Technomyrmex brunneus (small right).Diacamma is shown with a portion of its exoskeleton removed, revealing internal organs like part of its nervous system (blue) and muscle fibers (red). ThePristomyrmex andDiacamma specimens were collected by Professor Kazuki Tsuji from the University of the Ryukyus. The other specimens were collected by the OIST OKEON Project’s field team.
Credit
Julian Katzke
The ant tree of life, with lines indicating their presence in the Antscan dataset. Being open, the database will continue to grow to include the missing species as more scans are obtained.
Credit
Katzke et al., 2026
An example of research using the Antscan database. A large-scale screening of the datasets revealed that biomineral armor, which was previously only found in one species of leaf-cutter ants, was present in a host of fungus-growing ant species. A simple computational trait recognition algorithm was used to detect the thin, white outlines of exoskeletons (seen on the right), which indicate a highly reflective material — minerals. These findings could lead to further insights into the emergence of biomineral armor and its evolution across species.
