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a mild gripe with the article - there's a picture where it says "A casting of a nest made by a species of ant found in Florida next to an adult man for scale."
by roflc0ptic 5y ago
a mild gripe with the article - there's a picture where it says "A casting of a nest made by a species of ant found in Florida next to an adult man for scale." The "adult man" in this picture is Walter Tschinkel, who is a professor at Florida State University who studies ants. He's made a bunch of these castings. He's also friends with E.O. Wilson, the really famous ant-studying guy. He incidentally taught the hardest course I've ever taken - Bio II lab, "Animal Diversity."
Dunno. It's weird having a picture of a giant in the field and calling him "adult man for scale."
- HarryHirsch 5y agoThe "adult man" probably insisted on that - the real titans in the field are oftentimes hugely modest. Worked with a guy like that as an undergraduate. Can confirm.
- roflc0ptic 5y agoFrom what I remember, modesty wasn’t one of his shortcomings
- ASalazarMX 5y agoI think that makes the "adult man" caption even more interesting.
- k__ 5y agoAlso, he's only 5'10, so taking him as an example of the size of an male human is a bit of a stretch.
- frosted-flakes 5y agoThe average American male is 5'9", so why is it a stretch?
- dragonwriter 5y ago5’9” -> 5’10” is a 1” stretch. Which doesn't sound like much, unless you are the one on the rack.
- twic 5y agoSo about 15 millismoots.
- seszett 5y ago5'10 is 177cm according to Google, and that seems to be a very average height, maybe a little higher than average male height in the west. Average male height in the US, UK, France, Canada and Germany is 175cm for example.
- scrumbledober 5y agoin this context the only thing relevant is the fact that he's an adult man, so it seems appropriate.
- roflc0ptic 5y agoThe guy doing the research is being quoted as being inspired by work done by Tschinkel and others making molds of ant colonies. Dunno. It’s a little more than flavor