CRANTpy: Python Access to Clonal Raider ANT Connectome Datasets

CRANTpy: Python Access to Clonal Raider ANT Connectome Datasets#

CRANTpy is a Python library providing streamlined access to the Clonal Raider ANT (CRANT) connectome datasets. It offers a comprehensive interface for querying neurons, accessing morphological data, and analyzing neural circuits in the ant brain.

Currently, the connectome data for one brain is available: CRANTb, which is the brain of a worker clonal raider ant.

🧠 About the CRANTb Project#

The Clonal Raider ANT Brain (CRANTb) project is a large-scale effort to map the complete neural connectome of the clonal raider ant (Ooceraea biroi). This dataset represents one of the first comprehensive invertebrate brain connectomes available after the fruit fly, providing unprecedented insights into the neural basis of social behavior in insects. More information about the project, including information about how to get involved, can be found here.

This project was founded as a collaboration between the laboratories of Wei-Chung Allen Lee, Daniel Kronauer and Hannah Haberkern, among others.

CRANT Brain Dataset Overview

✨ Key Features#

  • 🔍 Flexible Neuron Querying: Filter neurons by anatomical region, cell type, tract, or custom criteria

  • 🌐 CAVE Integration: Direct access to the Connectome Annotation Versioning Engine

  • 📊 Rich Metadata: Access to comprehensive neuron annotations and properties

  • 🧮 Morphological Analysis: Tools for analyzing neuron meshes and skeletons

  • ⚡ Optimized Performance: Intelligent caching and batch processing for large-scale analyses

  • 🔄 Version Control: Support for different dataset versions (latest, sandbox)

📖 Documentation Sections#

Getting Started

Deep Dive

Reference

🛠️ Installation#

CRANTpy requires Python 3.10+ and can be installed using pip:

pip install crantpy

For development installations:

git clone https://github.com/Social-Evolution-and-Behavior/crantpy.git
cd crantpy
poetry install

🔗 Sister Projects#

For R users, check out our sister project crantr which provides R-based access to the same CRANT datasets: flyconnectome.github.io/crantr

🤝 Contributing#

We welcome contributions! Please see our GitHub repository for guidelines on how to contribute to the project.

🙏 Acknowledgements#

CRANTpy is heavily derived from the excellent work by Dr. Philipp Schlegel and the FlyWire project. See our full acknowledgements for complete contributor information.

📄 Citation#

If you use CRANTpy in your research, please cite:

@software{crantpy,
  title={CRANTpy: Python Access to Clonal Raider ANT Brain Datasets},
  author={CRANTb Community},
  url={https://github.com/Social-Evolution-and-Behavior/crantpy},
  year={2025}
}

Note: CRANTpy is built upon fafbseg-py by Dr. Philipp Schlegel. Please also cite the FlyWire project papers when using this tool.

📞 Support#

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