Texas Leaf Cutter Ant – Atta texana (Buckley)
August 24, 2009
Found a pile of leaf confetti at the base of a Shumard Oak in my yard, followed the trail for about 20 yards then it went under the fence. There were no ants, found out they operate at night and took some pictures this morning around 4:30. They may just defoliate my tree! Looked them up on the Aggie Extension site and believe that I have correctly identified them.
Renee
Seguin, TX
Texas Leaf Cutter Ant
Hi Renee,
We agree with your identification of a Texas Leaf Cutter Ant. BugGuide also lists many additional common names, including Town Ant, Cut Ant, Parasol Ant, Fungus Ant and Night Ant. Leafcutter Ant and Leafcutting Ant are also used. BugGuide also states: “Food In Texas these ants damage weeds, grasses, plum and peach trees, blackberry bushes and many other fruit, nut and ornamental plants as well as several cereal and forage crops. The ants do not eat the leaf fragments they collect, but take them into their underground nest where they use the material to raise a fungus garden. As the fungus grows, certain parts of it are eaten by the ants and fed to the larvae. This fungus is their only known source of food.Leaf cutting ants will attack pine trees but ordinarily they do little damage when other green plants are available. During the winter when green plant material is scarce, seedling pines are frequently damaged in parts of east Texas and west central Louisiana. Where ants are abundant, it is almost impossible to establish natural pine reproduction. In such sites, young pine seedlings often are destroyed within a few days unless the ants are controlled before planting.
Remarks Leaf cutting ants live in large colonies of up to 2 million.“ We are also linking to the Forest Pests website that contains much information including this: “Biology – The ants have a mating flight in May or June. After mating, the females establish nests beneath the soil and become the queens of the colonies. Worker ants carry the cut foliage and other vegetative material back to the nest, where it is used to culture the fungus that is their primary food.“
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black with red stripes
August 23, 2009
I’ve found a half-dozen or so of these guys crawling around behind the barn, although it might be a mistake to refer to them all as “guys”. they have five horizontal red stripes around a tapering body – maybe 3/4 to 1″ long. Head and legs are more like those of ants – little teeny wings (?) with a vertical red stripe. they can move really fast when they want to, but mostly just waddle around.
I’ve looked in all my available references and I’m stumped.
Nancy L.
western AZ at 5000 feet elevation
Mating Blister Beetles
Dear Nancy,
We really think Blister Beetles in the genus Megetra are phenomenal looking, and we are ecstatic that you have sent us a photo of a mating pair.
Blister Beetle
What is this bug?
August 23, 2009
Can you please tell me what this bug is and if it is poisonous?
Belinda DiGerolamo
Carriere, MS
Cowkiller
Hi Belinda,
This is a species of Velvet Ant known commonly as a Cowkiller because of its painful sting. The female Velvet Ants are flightless wasps, and the non-stinging males have wings.
Giant Beetle?
August 23, 2009
My husband found this giant beetle as a hitch hiker on his way home from work. He brought it in to me because he knows I like unusual bugs. Its a dark sage green with specks of brown. I thought it might be a type of hercules beetle but the thing doesn’t have any pinchers & a small head. The picture was taken in late spring a few years ago. I love this site by the way. My friends think I’m crazy ‘cuz I don’t kill bugs & I’m female. We’re suppose to run screaming I guess.
Nancy S.
Northeast Tennessee
Female Eastern Hercules Beetle
Hi Nancy,
Congratulations on not being afraid to handle harmless insects. This is indeed a female Eastern Hercules Beetle, Dynastes tityus. The larger male has the horns in the family.
August 23, 2009
Please bear with us as we transfer to a new server. We hope this will increase the speed with which you may navigate our website and the speed with which we can answer questions. Additionally, since our site migration last fall, we have a better taxonomy and classification system. We still need to subclassifly many of our categories. Today we are working on our Caterpillar archives.
Similar to a Walkingstick
August 23, 2009
This looks like a walking stick but its legs are too close together. It was found in lake wicwas in meredith NH. When placed on shore it walked back to the lake where it held to a rock on the shoreline just under water. Seen at 1:15 pm on August 22, 2009.
Wicwas Bugs
Meredith NH
Water Scorpion
Dear Wicwas Bugs,
This is a Water Scorpion, and it gets its name from the painful bite. Though Water Scorpions do not routinely bite humans, if they are carelessly handled, they do not hesitate. Your specimen is not mature yet as evidenced by its incompletely developed wings. Though aquatic, adult Water Scorpions fly quite well.
Unnecessary Carnage
Hi,
I like the unnecessary carnage posts. I don’t understand why some people feel they need to kill every insect they find… at least before committing “insecticide” one should seek education. I always seek to capture and release.
That said, I admit to killing some of our many-legged friends in select cases. One example is when a yellow-fly or deer fly decides to “defend” such territory as the front doorstep and aggressively trespasses into the house (In Florida, lethal force is authorized under the “Castle Doctrine” you see…). But seriously, these dear flies should seek education too; it is not in their best interest to break into a house, armed and intending to cause great bodily harm. Have you seen the welts they leave? Bigger than a silver dollar! I know, you probably think I’m an evil person for defending myself. Alas. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you about the panic I go into when surrounded by Culex nigripalpus during an encephalitis outbreak; I’m sure there are casualties.
I’m not sure what came over me there. I really just meant to tell you about all the spiders and moths and such that I release or leave alone. I don’t even bother the black widows out in the shed (but I’m not attempting diplomacy either… we just stay out of each others’ way). But somehow your site has the attraction of the confession booth, I think; else why do people send in pictures of viciously mauled hexapods when clearly the site is staffed by insect advocates?
Kind regards,
Robert Beverly
Friend of the Many-Legged;
With the exception of a few irreconcilable terrorists.
Dear Robert,
Thanks for your thoughtful letter. We too draw the line at bloodsuckers. We have no problem swatting Mosquitoes. We also dispatch Sugar Ants that invade the kitchen, though we leave them alone in the yard. We have no mercy with pantry pests and aphids sucking the juices from our garden plants are manually dispatched.
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