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many individuals of Nylanderia flavipes, another species no one
knew was present: the Asian needle ant, Brachyponera chinensis,
also from Japan (which has not been found again in the city).
Then, early in 2011, it was my turn to call James. He was not
living in Manhattan any more, but I wanted to know if he was up
for an expedition to New York to find something new. He was. We
went back to Inwood Hill Park and then Marko’s medians to look
for ants. James and I have searched for ants on several
continents together, but nothing, as he showed me, is quite like
looking for ants in Manhattan. As we paused to joke in one
median, a horn honked. House sparrows rose up out of one of the
planted trees. The subway vibrated beneath us. And all around us
ants, bees, wasps, and thousands of other species moved about
their lives.
I can’t help but wonder where those 550 Columbia freshmen
went. They should all have graduated by now, out into the world
of their chosen professions. I hope that at least a few of them still
remember that the Big Apple is riddled with life. It is one of the
most highly observed cities in the world and yet it is so unknown
that if any of them were to choose to, they could go outside right
now and do more science. Doing real science, I learned in New
York, and I would learn again each time I work with students or
the public, is for everyone. As for New York, it is for the birds, but
also for the ants and other insects, for everyone of us who wants
the streets clean and the flowers pollinated.
Undergraduate Ryanna Henderson hard at work sampling
arthropods in NYC mediums. - © Elsa Youngsteadt
Back in the medians, James and I did not find anything terribly
new on our most recent trip to Manhattan (except for science
writer Carl Zimmer). We must have needed the students to make
big discoveries, a possibility confirmed when three of my
students from North Carolina State University—Britné Hackett,
Brian Parham, and Benoit Guenard—went to Manhattan to do
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