Brackenridge Field Lab

Students
- GRADUATE
- Prospective Students
- Current Students
- KEY RESOURCES
- Student Life
- Health Professions Office
- Support Services
- Graduation
- Volunteering & Outreach
- Degree Checklists
The Freshman Research Initiative provides hands-on science experience.
Faculty & Research
- Faculty & Research Home
- Faculty
- Faculty Directory
- Honors & Awards
- More »
- blank-line
- Research
- Centers & Institutes
- Research Areas
- Core Facilities
College of Natural Sciences is home to a number of nationally-recognized teachers and researchers.
Staff
- blank-line
- Staff Celebration Day
Meet our award-winning staff.
Alumni
- blank-line
- Advisory Council
Read about members of our diverse and distinguished alumni community.
About
- Philanthropy
- Make a Gift

UT scientists are all in for the fight against crazy ants. Image: Crazy Ant (Nylanderia fulva), Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In 2014, the staff at Estero Llano Grande State Park, on the Rio Grande outside Weslaco, began seeing large colonies of ants they did not recognize around the buildings and in the restrooms. Then staffers began noticing the ants driving birds out of their nests — a particularly bad thing at a park that is part of the Rio Grande Valley's World Birding Center.

Leafcutter Ants' Success Due to More Than Crop Selection

A rare peak inside the garden of a leafcutter ant colony reveals the queen (center-left), brood, and an extensive matrix of fungal hyphae that form both the nest structure and the insects' exclusive diet. Public domain image by Alex Wild, for the University of Texas at Austin's "Insects Unlocked" project.

A complex genetic analysis has biologists re-evaluating some long-held beliefs about the way societies evolved following the invention of agriculture—by six-legged farmers.

In The News

News