Carl W. Rettenmeyer started his studies of army ants in 1952 when he was a junior at Swarthmore College.  At that time he got the great opportunity to serve as field assistant for Dr. Theodore C. Schneirla, Department of Animal Behavior, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY.  They went to Barro Colorado Island, Panama to study army ants for about six months in 1952.

Marian E. Rettenmeyer, Carl’s wife since 1954, assisted him on his Ph. D. research in 1956 and has been helping him ever since.

Julia Joseph, research assistant is in charge of Information Technology, Video Editing, ant sorting, photo labeling and many other tasks including recent field work in Latin America.