Whether you're looking for white ants, fire ants or carpenter ants, the first complete database of the world's 11,000 known ant species can help you out. Scientists say antbase.org is a unique resource for scholars, ecologists or anyone interested in myrmecology—the scientific study of ants. "The project is unique in its scope, " said Donat Agosti, a Swiss scientist and Cairo-based research associate at the American Museum of Natural History. With ants, scientists have a lot to keep track of. Ants are the most common life form on earth. Though tiny, their combined weight is greater than that of the combined weight of all humans. Ted Schultz, an entomologist at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, said the ant database was "really valuable." He said that because ants were exceptionally good "bio-indicators," environmental experts could use the data to check if an entire ecosystem is healthy, based mostly on its ant population.

　　不管你要找白蚁、火蚁还是木匠蚁，第一个收罗了世界上已知所有11,000种蚂蚁的完整数据库都可以帮你解决难题。科学家们说，antbase.org网站为学者、生态学家和所有对蚁学——研究蚂蚁的科学——感兴趣的人提供了独一无二的资源。驻开罗的美国自然史博物馆副研究员、瑞士科学家多那特·阿哥斯蒂说：“该项目的规模无与伦比。"蚂蚁身上有许多值得科学家们探究的东西。蚂蚁虽然小，但所有蚂蚁的重量加起来比所有人的重量总和还要大。华盛顿史密森学会的昆虫学家特德·舒尔茨认为蚁类数据库“非常有价值”。他说，由于蚂蚁是特别好的“生物指示器”，环境专家可以利用这些资料，主要依据某个生态系统内的蚁群数量来考察该系统是否状况良好。

　　Remarks：应该有一个关于人这个物种的详尽数据库，以便我们监测自身所处的社会是否状况良好。