BB: In recent years, the close morphological examination of mainly Palaearctic species, many of them supposedly well known and common, has disclosed the existence of numerous cryptic species. By which I mean that a supposedly single species, often a common and widely distributed taxon whose single-species status has been unchallenged for years, has turned out to be an assemblage of closely related but discrete species. These investigations have noticably increased the number of Palaearctic ant species, but the methods have not yet been applied to the obviously vastly larger tropical faunas. There is little doubt in my mind that when the techniques are applied to widespread, apparently single, common species in the tropics, similar results will be obtained. Add to this the possibilities presented by DNA analysis to disclose cryptic species, and the potential number of new species begins to increase quite strikingly. On top of the numbers of new species produced by these methods, detailed sampling in under-explored zoogeographical regions, or intense investigation of discrete ecoregions within them, will undoubtedly produce hundreds of undescribed species. One merely has to look at the results obtained in a couple of recent surveys to get some idea of this. Taking the genera Strumigenys and Pheidole as examples, the number of described species of the former genus rose, between the years 1995 and 2000, from 339 to 790 (Bolton, 2000), and the NewWorld species of the latter genus increased, between the years 1995 and 2003, from 263 to 624 (Wilson, 2003). Brian Fisher’s intensive sampling on Madagascar increased the number of Strumigenys species alone from six to 90. Obviously, the Madagascan fauna was poorly known compared to most other regions, but one cannot help but suspect that similar intensive surveys in other tropical regions will also produce striking increases in the numbers of species represented. Then consider the possibilities presented by close investigations of restricted or highly specialised habitats. For instance, deep in various types of soil, among the matted root systems of grasses, within the topmost twigs of tall trees, under bark, in mosses, fungi and the bases of epiphytes, in the walls of subterranean, terrestrial and arboreal termitaries (both inhabited and abandoned); you can probably imaging many other restricted habitats. Some specialised habitats have been examined in the Holarctic, but in the tropical realms, where ants are overwhelmingly abundant, their potential has barely been touched upon, and certainly never explored in great detail. In conclusion, new species will be abundantly exposed both by the application of refined techniques, and by the exploration of under-investigated habitats., BF: There are many regions of the world where ants have not been carefully explored using modern techniques, particularly in tropical and subtropical areas such as the Congo Basin or SE Asia. At some level, most ant species are “cryptic” – that is, in general, ant species are difficult to delimit and often challenging to identify., He's also big and strong. So when the clouds start to come over it makes the darkness a sometimes scary place. It's like falling into a dark pit of anger and madness. It's where normal rules do not apply, and when he drags you in there with him, a place where, as much as you try, you can't look up and see any light shining in from the top..