Leptogenys attenuata
In spite of the southern winter, the coastal forests of Kwazulu-Natal had plenty of ant activity to keep me occupied last week. In addition to the beautiful Polyrhachis I posted earlier, here are portraits of a few of the species I encountered.
Crematogaster tricolor
Platythyrea cooperi
Myrmicaria natalensis
Plectroctena mandibularis
Anochetus faurei
Oecophylla longinoda (African Tailor Ant)
Cataulacus brevisetosus
Dorylus helvolus
Pachycondyla (Bothroponera) mlanjiensis
Atopomyrmex mocquerysi
Pheidole megacephala (Big-Headed Ant)
Solenopsis geminata (introduced from South America)
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More like this
By request, I have now organized the ant photos by subfamily. This mimics the arrangement from the old site. For the smug-muggers out there who want to know how it works, I basically set up an "old journal" gallery and put the genus names and links into the caption box. I used CSS to set all…
Cataulacus brevisetosus - armored arboreal ant (Africa)
Cephalotes rohweri - armored arboreal ant (North America)
Tetraponera natalensis - elongate twig ant (Africa)
Pseudomyrmex pallidus - elongate twig ant (North America)
Plectroctena mandibularis - giant hunting ant (Africa)…
On my recent visit to the coastal forests of Kwazulu-Natal I noticed basketball-like growths on many of the Acacia trees. In North America, any large gray ball you see hanging off a tree branch is liable to be a hornet's nest. In South America, it's probably a carton nest of fierce little…
My earlier list of the most-studied ant species contained a few omissions. Here is a more inclusive list:
Ant species sorted by number of BIOSIS-listed publications, 1984-2008
The Top 10 Species
Publications
Solenopsis invicta
984
Linepithema humile
343
Lasius niger
250
Formica…
Wow!
That's a stunning collection Alex...
Yay! Some beautiful African ants!
That's a fair fist-full of Ponerines there.....does that reflect what you saw active?
I had to come back and take a second look at these. The Dorylus helvolus worker is fantastic! I'm looking forward to seeing the full set on Myrmecos.com.
Kate- It's a mix of what was active and what I decided would look good on white. I ended up photographing about 30 or so species in total, only doing these portrait shots for about a third of them. Some things I found but aren't pictured here are Tetramorium, Tetraponera, Technomyrmex, Pyramica, Lepisiota, Plagiolepis, and lots of other species of Pheidole and Crematogaster. I would have liked to have done more on the savannah fauna, but being winter and all I stuck to the coastal forests.
Scott- That might take a while. I still have to do the rebuild of myrmecos.net and I'll probably hold off on most of the African photos until the new site is done. And that won't happen until after the move.
Wow - what incredible picture you have there!
BELAS FOTOS DE INSETOS! SOU ADMIRADOR DE FORMIGAS, E AQUI NO BRASIL HÃ VÃRIAS ESPÃCIES.
BYE!