Atta laevigata
Location: Tampico, Tamaulipas, México
September 18, 2010 4:08 am
Hi!
I just wanted to share with you guys this pic of an edible leaf cutter ant, they’re called ’hormigss chicatanas’ in the eastern coast of Mexico. They’re considered a delicacy, although I haven’t tryed them yet, word has it that they’re quite tasty and even a bit aphrodisiac.
This was taken about three months ago. They’re quite numerous during the summer.
Signature: Rexnatus
Leafcutter Ant
Hi again Rexnatus,
We were lucky enough to see swarming Leafcutter Ants in Chiatla in the state of Puebla. They emerged in June shortly after a rain. We will be sure to tag them as Edible Insects on our site.
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Ant in Luxor Egypt
Location: Luxor Egypt
August 19, 2010 6:24 pm
My wife and I were walking around the Karnak temple in Luxor Egypt and kept running into these vicious looking ants. They seemed to have rather long legs and liked to keep their abdomen up in the air, looking more like a little scorpion than an ant at first sight. Couldn’t get a really good look at what it was trying to pull up from the ground there, but it was engaged in a mighty struggle to wrestle it from the ground. Please let us know what species of ant this might. Many thanks!
p.s. we saw the same ant near the pyramids in Giza as well.
horizon hunters
Unknown Ant
Dear horizon hunters,
We are posting your image prior to securing an identification and we are hoping our readership may be able to assist. Though we are running late and cannot browse at the moment, we suspect the Ants of Egypt website may contain the answer.
1
Mega-ant from Singapore
Location: Singapore
August 21, 2010 5:51 am
Hi bugman
I was fascinated by this ant species since i was young. It is about 1cm long. Any idea what species it is?
Jerome
Bigheaded Ant from Singapore
Hi Jerome,
At the start of our search for information, we discovered a species called the Bigheaded Ant, Pheidole megacephala, which has an unusual caste system. There are worker ants in two sizes, the minor workers and the more rare major workers that are larger with larger heads. We found information on the Pest Ants of Florida page, and we learned that this African species has become a major introduced pest in many parts of the world, including Florida. BugGuide has a photo of the Major Worker that looks very similar to your photograph. The Florida Featured Creatures website has a very extensive profile on the Bigheaded Ant. We have a follow-up question. In our research, it seems the size difference between the minor and major Bigheaded Ant workers is not as extreme as what is indicated in your photograph. In your sightings over the years, have you always seen the larger ants and smaller ants together?
thanks for the ID! The larger ants only come out when there is food to take back to the nest
1
¶ Posted 21 August 2010 § ‡ ° Mutualism: Ants & Leafhoppers!
Location: Cherokee County, North Carolina
August 8, 2010 9:08 am
I first spotted these guys early on in spring of this year. At first they were on only a few stems of one locust sapling, but now, when these photos were taken, they’ve expanded to about six other saplings near their original location.
Earlier on in the year they were ”farming” small aphids as well as these little leafhoppers, but the aphids seem to have disappeared over the following months, and it seems that they’re tending the leafhoppers exclusively now.
It’s amazing to see how well the ants tend these little creatures. They divide the young ones from the old ones, and place the young ones on the newer growth while keeping the old ones on the thicker growth from the year before. Occasionally I saw an ant feeding by licking droplets(honeydew I suppose) that were excreted from the leafhopper’s posterior.
The ants guarded their herds quite well, and attacked just about any creature that strayed onto their branches. I conducted a little ”experiment” and managed to remove one of the leafhoppers without one immediately noticing. When the ant returned to the leafhopper’s original resting place and found that it was missing, it frantically ran about the stem and combed each nearby leaf. After about five minutes it met up with two other ants and they too ran around for about five minutes before giving up(the missing leafhopper in question escaped from my hand before I managed to put it back, unless something eats it I suppose it may return to the tree).
The locust saplings also hosted some sort of tiny black ants, but my less-than-stellar camera couldn’t zoom in quite enough. The large ants never seemed to notice them, and they appeared to be feeding on bits of locust sap at the base of the green stems.
Hopefully these little guys stay around for some time, they’re quite interesting to watch. After seeing these I’ve searched some other groups of locust saplings in the area, but this one small cluster seems to be the only one hosting these creatures.
Jacob
Symbiosis: Ants and Leafhoppers
Hi Jacob,
Thanks so much for providing your detailed observations on the symbiotic relationship between Ants and Leafhoppers. Your observations regarding the frenzy over the vanished Leafhopper is especially interesting. Here in Los Angeles, the symbiotic relationship between the Argentine Ants and Aphids and Leafhoppers is most problematic since the invasive exotic Ant species transports the sap sucking insects from host plant to host plant, spreading the infestation throughout the garden. In these symbiotic relationships, both insects benefit. The Ants eat the honeydew secreted by the sap suckers as your narrative observes, and the sap suckers benefit from protection as you also observed.
Symbiosis: Ants and Leafhoppers
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Huge Ants Taking Over My House
Location: South Florida
August 5, 2010 11:28 am
To What’s That Bug?,
I live in South Florida, and for the past few days, my house has been home for some humongous ants. At first, it was just the usual ”ewe…look at this huge bug!” (squishes ant with flipflop). But now, I see about 5 or 6 of these monstrous ants daily, especially in the early morning and night. These bugs look like very large queen ants, measuring from 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch long. They have reddish black heads and torsos, but the abdomen is dark black and quite large. All of these bugs that I’ve encountered have cellophane-like wings and big ”pinchers”. I want to get to the bottom of these pests, so I don’t have to worry about them crawling over me when I sleep. HELP!!!
Jackie
Florida Carpenter Ant Alate
Hi Jackie,
It appears as though you have Florida Carpenter Ant alates, the winged reproductive form that swarms and begins a new colony. There may be a Florida Carpenter Ant colony somewhere in your home, and the presence of the alates over the past few days will eventually cease until the next swarming season. You can find out more about the Florida Carpenter Ants, Camponotus floridanus, on BugGuide.
Florida Carpenter Ant Alates
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¶ Posted 05 August 2010 § ‡ ° Assassinated and Form Problem
July 26, 2010 8:01 PM
Hi Daniel,
Just tried submitting this picture via the form but as per last time got the error message “Failed to send your message. Please try later.”
Anyway, thought you might like this for your foodchain pages. This is an Orange Ground Assassin Bug, Ectomocoris patricius, that has come off second best to an ant colony.
regards,
Trevor
Orange Ground Assassin Bug eaten by Ants
Hi Trevor,
Thanks for taking the trouble to send this image to us via different channels. Please let us know if the form continues to give you problems when submitting photos because we do not want any interruption in our reception of the fabulous images you provide us from Australia.
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Ant/Wasp/Fly hybrid in Baja
June 5, 2010
We got invaded by these bugs a couple weeks ago. They were crazy and pesky keeping us up at night. They are reddish like an ant, with a striped abdomen like a wasp, a face like an ant and wings like a fly. Big beady eyes and I’m pretty sure they had pincher mouths. They also scream!!!! They’re relatively small, similar to a big flying ant.
Baja Bug Girl
San Felipe, Baja California
Male Velvet Ant
Dear Baja Bug Girl,
Though we are confident that this is a Flying Ant, we do not feel qualified to attempt a species identification. Perhaps one of our readers will be able to provide that information.
Correction
June 7, 2010
We received a comment that this is a male Velvet Ant, a species of Wasp, and not an ant as we originally suspected.
1
¶ Posted 06 June 2010 § ‡ ° What kind of ant is this
April 26, 2010
These ants are all over the place here in northern Idaho. They live in 1 to 3 foot tall mounds of loose debris. I want to know the name of this ant, please.
beau bugs
north Idaho U.S.A.
Mound Ant
Dear beau bugs,
Interestingly, when we began our research on BugGuide, the first thing we discovered is that there isn’t any data of Ants from Idaho submitted to the website to date. We are relatively certain your ant is in the genus Formica, and the likeliest candidate is Formica obscuripes which is reported from nearby Montana and Washington. BugGuide has a nice photo of the mound, and nice photos of ants, but next to no information on the species, until we located a single comment on a posted photo. Wikipedia provided common names for the genus like Mound Ant, Field Ant and Wood Ant, as well as additional information: “Formica are notable for their parasitic and slave making behaviors. There are three categories. In the exsecta and rufa-microgyna groups, virgin queens cannot start colonies on their own, but invade colonies of other groups and by various processes eventually oust the host queen and have the host workers help them raise their own brood. Eventually the colony consists of only the invading queen’s offspring. This is called temporary social parasitism. In the sanguinea group, colonies are started as above, but then in some species of the group workers go out and raid colonies of other groups for new workers to act as a work force, so-called slaves (but this is a poor analogy). Some species of this group need to do this to survive, for others it is optional. The pallidefulva, neogagates, and fusca groups are those most often parasitized by the above groups. They are also enslaved by ants of the genus Polyergus. The evolution of this behavior is believed ultimately to have been derived from the common habit of many Formica species of adopting recently mated queens into established colonies. Indeed, in many of the parasitic species outside the ‘slave-makers’, this ‘secondary polygyny’ is common.“ According to BugGuide, Formica obscuripes is in the rufa group, and BugGuide recognizes the microgyna group as distinct, having this to report: “Species of this group are believed to be temporary social parasites of other species of Formica. The female in some way is adopted by workers of the host species. Host workers may remain in the colony after the intruding queen has established her own brood, but the host workers eventually die. Most species are found in open woods or meadows. The nests are usually of the thatch type, but the thatching is normally scattered about the nest openings and appears as a flattened disc.”
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¶ Posted 26 April 2010 § ‡ ° 
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