On planet Earth, approximately 20% of all living things are ants, they differ in their size. The most biggest ants in the world live on a continent washed by four oceans - Africa.
Ants belong to the genus Formicidae, to a subfamily called Dinoponera Roger. The length of such an ant is about 30 millimeters. This subfamily is one of the most dangerous ants on the planet. The settlement of such species reaches about three kilometers and includes about two million ants.
The everyday life of ants is based on strict laws. They are distinguished by their high organization. The ant family consists of:
- Larvae;
- Eggs;
- Pupae;
- Male;
- Female.
Among them, there is the so-called “working class”. This class includes:
- Soldatikov.
- Infertile females.
One such ant family can consist of about ten thousand individuals. Each of them contains a pair of females and males capable of reproduction, they are called queens and kings, respectively. Ants are very hardworking insects. A distinctive feature of these insects is that they do not sleep, but are always on the move. There is such an interesting fact that if you take their brain and relate it to the total body mass, then ants will surpass humans. They can lift a load 20 times their own weight, but a person is unlikely to cope with such a burden.
which occupy an honorable 2nd place are ants of the genus Camponotus, they, in turn, were divided into the following species:
Vagus. Insect size: females are 12 mm, males are 16 mm. There is only one female in this family. When the cubs appear, she builds a nest herself. The choice of home falls on stale stones, dried trees and stumps. Most of them live in the Urals in Russia.
Herculeanus. Their length can reach a size of 20 mm; for the working class, the length is 15 mm. They live mainly in the forests of Siberia, Africa, Europe and parts of Northern Asia. They build their homes in rotten and diseased tree trunks, causing them even more harm.
Giga. These are the largest representatives of the genus. The length of one ant can reach:
- 31 mm - in a female,
- 28 mm - for a male,
- for a worker ant it is 22 mm.
The color of the insect is black, the legs are yellow, and the back of the body has red shades. They live in Asia.
Interesting fact: Ants of different families can fight for their territory. The family that loses in such a war leaves the area.
Formicidae also have subspecies:
- Сlavata
The Slavata species is not only the largest representative of the genus, but also dangerous. The bite of such an ant is excruciating and painful and is considered more dangerous, for example, a wasp or bee sting. Such ants are called “Pul”; they have a powerful sting that contains poison and a paralyzing substance. After such a bite, a person will not be able to move, and sometimes muscle spasms are observed. If a person is prone to allergies, such a bite can lead to death.
Interesting fact: The law of the ant is never to attack first. First they scare the victim, and then they can attack. At the same time, they hiss and emit a specific smell.
- Myrmecia pilosula
Myrmecia pilosula is the next subspecies, they are also called bulldog ants. Bulldogs live in Australia. The appearance of ants resembles the body of a wasp, only they do not have wings. For humans, such ants are dangerous, it is better to avoid them. They resemble bees not only in appearance, but also in that they can sting, releasing dangerous poison.
The length of the female is almost 5 cm, and in the working class it is up to 4 cm. Their peculiarity is the presence of a large jaw with notches, pushed forward by 0.5 cm. Life expectancy is up to about 5 years. This is one of the strongest types, which can lift a load 50 times more. Another thing that sets bulldog ants apart is that they are the only species that can make sounds.
The Bulldog family consists of one hundred ants, rarely when this number reaches one thousand. Nests are built in places with high humidity.
The largest ants in the world accordingly form the largest anthills. The size of the anthill will depend on how many individuals make up the family; it follows from this that the larger the family, the larger the anthill. On average, the size of their home can reach a height of 1.7 meters and a width of 3 meters.
Some amazing ants of the world.
- Polyrhachis dives are a type of arboreal species called weaver ants. The female is 13 mm long, and the male is 1 cm. Weaver larvae create silk throughout their lives. Thanks to this talent, they can build their homes by connecting various plant debris with threads of silk web. An anthill created using this technique is distinguished by its lightness and reliability; it is not afraid of wind or rain.
Weaver ants have a silver-gray body color. Due to the fact that they have many hairs on their body, their color plays different colors in the sun.
Weaver ants can create colonies of hundreds of thousands of individuals, and they have many queens for reproduction. Families can be formed with two queens at once. Ants of this species quickly spread; if the female suddenly finds a place where she can settle, she simply takes several workers with her, and they, in turn, take a couple of larvae with them to build a nest.
The main part of this ant species lives in China.
- Panda Ant. This species is from the genus of velvet insects, their habitat is Chile. These individuals have deadly bites and therefore they were given the second name “Cow Killers”.
- Honey ants. They belong to different genera. Honey cakes accumulate liquid carbohydrates in their belly. Carbohydrates are food that they can share with other ants in the family through burping. Such ants have an elastic body where useful microelements accumulate, which they then share with others. Honey ants live in tropical jungle countries - Mexico, Australia. Residents of the state nicknamed them “Earth grapes.” The natives of Australia liked honey ants; they caught them and used them instead of sweets.
There are more than 12,000 species of ants on Earth. They inhabit a wide variety of natural landscapes, adapt to almost any living conditions and manage to become the dominant group of insects almost everywhere. Of course, ants of each individual species have many characteristics, and we are talking here not so much about appearance, but about the specifics of behavior and lifestyle in general. And here even our closest neighbors (from the nearest forest) may turn out to be more interesting than the inhabitants of the exotic tropics described in books.
This is interesting
Among the ants there are both record holders for heat resistance and walrus insects. For example, representatives of the beetle family live in deserts and can normally withstand air temperatures of up to 50°C, feeding on insects that quickly die in such heat. On the contrary, the Kamchatka ant survives the winter, cooling to -52°C, but remaining alive.
The photo below shows a bullet ant that can withstand temperatures that are lethal to other insects:
Pharaoh ant
The pharaoh ant is one of the most famous to man. Especially for a resident of an apartment or private house. These ants are the same tiny pests that run in slender lines along the baseboards, occupy trash cans and carry crumbs from the table and sugar from the bedside tables.
The photo below shows ants of this type in an apartment:
This is interesting
The mixture of acids that pharaoh ants secrete is lethal to bed bugs. Therefore, in an apartment heavily infested with pharaoh ants, bedbugs almost always die out.
Here are some more photos of pharaoh ants:
The Pharaoh ant is known for its difficulty in removing - not only the extermination of individual foragers indoors, but even the destruction of an individual anthill does not at all mean removing ants from the house. The reason for this is the ability of this species to create unique dispersed nests, each of which is inhabited by her or several breeding females and several hundred worker ants.
These nests are interconnected and form a huge colony that can occupy several floors in an apartment building. And until the last such nest is built, the ants themselves will happily “delight” the owner of the room with their presence.
Red forest ant
Red forest ants are one of the most famous in Russia. It is this species that builds huge anthills up to two meters high in coniferous forests, each of which is home to several hundred thousand inhabitants.
It is red forest ants that are depicted in pictures in school textbooks. The main diet of the red ant is the secretions of aphids, larvae and adults of various forest pests.
In the photo - a red wood ant drags a caterpillar into an anthill.
The red wood ant is an endangered species whose numbers are constantly declining. Part of the blame for this lies with people who destroy young anthills and catch the ants themselves to prepare traditional medicine.
Reaper ants - steppe workers
Harvester ants are famous for their huge food reserves in their anthills. For the winter, they can collect up to a kilogram of seeds and dead insects in the nest, which is enough for a family of several thousand ants to safely overwinter in conditions of reduced activity.
Photos of harvester ants:
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In harvester ants, the summer occurs in the spring, while in other species this event is confined to the summer months. Due to such evolutionary progress, a fertilized female has the opportunity to establish a new anthill in still moist soil.
A peculiarity of harvester ants is that they feed their larvae with ground plant grains - in most other ants the larvae feed exclusively on animal food. At the same time, in the anthill of the reapers, the soldiers grind the largest grains with their powerful jaws, and the ants of a smaller caste gnaw the resulting pieces, and those individuals that feed the larvae grind the remaining flour into a kind of gruel.
In the picture, a harvester ant carries seeds to an anthill:
Bulldog ants: giants of the ant world
But bulldog ants are already representatives of tropical fauna. They are distributed almost exclusively in Australia and are considered one of the most primitive ants, having much in common with wasps. The photo shows an adult bulldog ant:
On a note
Bulldog ants are one of the most beautiful in the world. The length of a worker ant can reach 3 cm. However, the difference in size between the worker ant and the queen is not as noticeable as in other ants.
Bulldog ants got their name from their huge jaws, with the help of which they get food and... jump. It is by forcefully pushing off the ground with its jaws that an ant can jump up to 30 cm. In the photographs below you can clearly see these powerful jaws:
In addition, bulldog ants are good swimmers. Their larvae feed independently on food that worker ants bring to the anthill.
Bulldog ants are dangerous. Every year in Australia and Tasmania, several people die from their bites - these insects have a sting, and their venom causes a severe allergic reaction and can lead to anaphylactic shock.
Nomadic ants: the fear of all the tropics
Nomadic ants are among the most famous. They are also called killer ants because during their movements they destroy all arthropods, small rodents and reptiles in the territories in which they find themselves.
Photos of nomadic ants:
The main feature of nomadic ants is their lack of an anthill - a colony of several hundred thousand individuals either forms a temporary shelter in the form of a ball of interlocking workers, or finds a hole or cavity under stones in which the queen will lay eggs for several weeks. After raising a certain number of young ants and depleting food supplies, the colony is removed from its place and moved to another, more food-rich area.
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The queen of a nomadic ant is striking in its fertility: in Asian species, it lays up to 130 thousand eggs per day - approximately three eggs every two seconds. No other insect has such fertility.
Carpenter ants
Among the carpenter ants, there are many species that are familiar to us - these are the same ants that run along tree trunks and collect honeydew from the leaves. They are called woodborers because they often make their nests in stumps or under the bark of living trees, carefully gnawing passages and chambers in the wood. Due to such activities, they can cause damage to forestry.
Photos of carpenter ants:
Amazon ants and their slaves
Amazon ants are a very specific group of ant species that, in principle, do not produce workers. Their offspring are either future queens or soldiers. To search for food and care for their larvae, either the Amazon queen herself or a squad of her soldiers attacks the anthills of more peaceful species of ants and steals larvae and pupae from there. The worker ants that emerge from them perceive the invaders as parents, and in the Amazon anthill they carry out all the routine work.
Photos of Amazon ants:
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Some species of Amazon ants are very highly specialized: they can steal the larvae and pupae of only one donor species. Of course, the ants attacked by the Amazons defend their brood, and the mortality rate among the Amazons themselves is very high.
In the photo, an Amazon ant carries a stolen larva into its anthill:
Among the Amazons there are species that also live in Russia.
Leaf-cutter ants are human competitors
Leaf-cutter ants are one of the few creatures in the world that engage in agriculture, and at a very high technological level. Working ants of these species gnaw off pieces of leaves, take them to the anthill, where these leaves are chewed by other ants, mixed with saliva and infected with spores of a special fungus.
Photos of leaf-cutter ants:
This is interesting
In a colony of leaf-cutter ants, there are 7 castes of individuals that differ in appearance and behavior. The difference in size between the smallest worker ant and a soldier can be up to 200 times. Moreover, in general, all ants of the family perform up to 29 different unique operations when preparing food.
The picture below shows a line of leaf-cutter ants:
In habitats, large colonies can destroy leaf cover on large trees, so they are actively combated near plantations and gardens.
Termites are very similar to ants both in appearance and in the nature of their social structure. However, these insects should not be confused: termites are systematically closer to cockroaches, and ants are closer to wasps and bees. However, in terms of their ability to build impressive structures and various biological features, these insects have a lot in common.
Interesting video: the battle between ants and wasps for prey
Spider vs Ant
It’s hard to imagine that ants and termites make up about 20% of the weight of all life on Earth. These inconspicuous creatures number about 900 species and are second only to birds in their diversity. The internal structure and division of functional responsibilities in the anthill amazes with its expediency. They also have their own giants. The largest ants in the world live on the African continent. They reach more than 30 mm in length. The size of the colonies of these insects reaches several kilometers in diameter, and the number reaches several million.
The largest ants in the world, living in Africa, are representatives of the genus Formicidae, subfamily Ponerinae - Dinoponera Roger. Besides them, the largest ants include Dinoponera gigantea, which are also called Dinosaur ants or Giant Amazonian ant.
Dinoponera lucida
This species was first described in 1833 as Ponera gigantea Perty, 1833. After 5 years, another biologist described it again, but under a different name - Ponera grandis Guerin-Meneville, 1838. The first name is correct, and the second is reduced to synonyms, although in Popular literature often features both. This species was separated into a separate genus Dinoponera many years later.
Judging by observations in laboratory nests, they are capable of carrying a small dead frog or sparrow chick alone. Only the physogastric queens of some nomadic ants can compete with it in the size record, and in the New World - comparable representatives of Paraponera clavata. In the Old World, Camponotus gigas reaches 3 cm. Adult larvae of Dinoponera gigantea have a size of 18-23 mm, eggs have a length of up to 3 mm, larvae of 1-2-3 instars have a length of 4-7-11 mm, respectively (Wheeler, G. C. and J. Wheeler, 1986).
Spreading: South America. Brazil and partially: Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay. The species Dinoponera gigantea (Perty) is found in Brazil and Peru.
Ecology. Despite its large size, it is a rather rare species, although it can be locally abundant. All 6 species are found in the Neotropic (South America) in tropical forests and humid savannas. No queens are found and eggs are laid by fertile workers (Holldobler, B. & Wilson, 1990: 173). The first taxonomic revision was made in 1971 (Kempf, 1971: 369–394).
Polymorphism. Workers and males. Uterus as a morphological caste were not found.
Nutrition. Predators and collectors of dead prey. Foraging is terrestrial, solitary and nocturnal (occasionally found during the day).
Ethology. Observed as foragers outside the nest, workers behave very timidly and in case of danger they usually rush to cover, under a leaf, and temporarily hide.
Nests.
Dinoponera longipes. The largest nest contained 120 female workers (all morphologically workers, no queens), 5 winged males and 57 cocoons, 6 large larvae, more than 30 small larvae and 25 eggs. Another small nest had only 7 workers and 11 eggs. The absence of brood other than eggs suggests that this nest contained an incipient or very young colony. The nests are located next to the tree or at its base. The distance between neighboring nests averages 35 meters (Morgan 1993).
Each nest has on average 11 large entrances (from 1 to 30) with a diameter of 2-3 cm. Outwardly inconspicuous, often hidden by fallen leaves. Almost all chambers (10-15 cm wide and 3-4 cm high) are located on the same level at a depth of about 30 cm in an area of 1 by 2 meters.
Dinoponera australis. The underground nests contain up to 15 large chambers, each capable of housing an entire colony of up to 30 workers (Paiva 1993).
Dinoponera quadriceps. Nests contain 40-92 workers and 1-10 gamergates per colony (Dantas de Araujo et al. 1990).
Founding families. In the species Dinoponera quadriceps, family division and budding were discovered, when a young gamergate and several workers leave the mother family. Workers carry each other or move in tandem. Adult colonies include up to 10 gamergates and 100 workers (Dantas De Araujo, et al. 1990). Autopsy of workers showed the presence of 6 ovarioles in each ovary and spermatheca, the development of which is associated with the physiological status among workers. Oviposition is typically carried out by fertilized workers called gamergates (Peeters, 1993).
The giant ant - Camponotus gigas - is the largest black ant from Southeast Asia. The length of soldiers and females reaches 3 cm.
Another name is Malaysian giant ant.
This ant has a black head and chest, and a red and black abdomen. The average size of ordinary workers and males is about 20 mm, and soldiers and queens reach 3 cm. Only the physogastric queens of some nomadic ants can compete with this record, and in the New World - comparable representatives of the genus Dinoponera and Paraponera clavata.
Lives in Southeast Asia, tropical rain forests from Sumatra to Thailand.
Its habitat ranges from peat swamps to mangrove forests to montane forests 1500 m above sea level. In southern Borneo the nominate species is replaced by the subspecies Camponotus gigas ssp. borneensis, with yellow legs. The structure of the colonies is highly flexible and consists of 8-14 mostly underground nests (Pfeiffer, 1997; Pfeiffer and Linsenmair, 2000). Large colonies occupy an area of up to 0.8 hectares and include up to 7000 worker ants.
Worker ants are dimorphic. Large soldiers weigh 372 mg, and small workers 135 mg. The castes differ in morphology, for example in the allometric growth of the head (head width for soldiers is 6.93 mm, for workers 3.56 mm).
Nocturnal foraging. At dusk, large masses of foragers (from 35 to 2287) leave the nest and explore the surrounding trees. By dawn everyone returns home. During the day you can find single foragers on the forest floor. Foragers collect the sweet secretions of sucking insects on trees (up to 90%) as well as insects (Pfeiffer and Linsenmair, 2001).
C. gigas has a symbiotic relationship with plant sap-sucking insects Bythopsyrna circulata from the cicada family Flatidae.
The giant Malaysian ant Camponotus gigas has a polydomous colony structure, combines an effective communication system, ergonomic optimization, polyethism, and active mobilization in the foraging area. Podcasta transport workers move prey from peripheral nests to a central nest containing the queen. (Pfeiffer and Linsenmair, 1998). Territorial behavior involves lengthy (about an hour) ritual clashes between large soldiers at fixed tournament locations. Such fighting may continue intermittently for months at a time along the borders of the territories of two colonies (Pfeiffer and Linsenmair, 2001).
There is an aseasonal, year-round rhythm in the emergence of sexual individuals, which is typical for tropical species in general. A rhythm of mating flights has been noted with a period of 188 ± 5 days under the influence of endogenous components (Pfeiffer and Linsenmair, 1997).
This species belongs to the subgenus Dinomyrmex of the genus Camponotus. There are two subspecies:
* Camponotus gigas borneensis Emery, 1887
* Camponotus gigas gigas (Latreille, 1802)
As you know, ants are one of the smallest creatures on earth. There are more than 13,000 species in the world and almost each species has its own characteristics. Here is a list of the ten most unusual ants in the world...
The American red harvester ant (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) is a species of ant native to the arid subtropical chaparral scrubland of the southwestern United States. Their body length is 5–7 mm. They mainly feed on seeds. The number of one colony can reach up to 12 thousand ants.
Among all insects, the Red American Reaper Ant has one of the most powerful venoms, and its sting force is 3 on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. It feels more than a hornet and a honey bee.
Dinoponera is a genus of the largest ants in the world. These insects, about 2–3 cm long (females can exceed 3–4 cm), live in the soil of mountain forests on the eastern slope of the Andes in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, as well as in the savannah and tropical forests of Brazil, Guyana, southern Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina. Despite their large size and fairly strong poison, they are not very aggressive.
German wasps (Mutillidae)
In seventh place in the ranking of unusual and amazing ants in the world is Polyrhachis bihamata, a medium-sized species of wood ants (about 1 cm, females up to 13 mm). They are widespread in Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines. It is distinguished by three hook-shaped long processes on the body.
In sixth place on the list of the most unusual ants in the world is the “Panda Ant” - an insect from the genus of velvet ants. They live in Chile. Because of their sometimes fatal stings, they received the nickname “cow killers.”
Honey ants are a group of ants of several different genera that accumulate liquid carbohydrates in the abdomen of one of the worker castes. They store liquid food in themselves and, if necessary, regurgitate it to other ants living in their colony. They were first described in 1881 by Henry S. McCook. Residents of Mexico call these insects “earth grapes” and extract honey from them.
Myrmecocystus is a North American genus of medium-sized ant found in the western United States and northern Mexico. The worker ants Myrmecocystus with a thick, filled abdomen, known as “honey barrels,” are eaten by Mexican Indians.
Third place in the list of unusual ants of the world is occupied by Dorylus, a genus of nomadic ants distributed mainly in central and eastern Africa, as well as in tropical regions of Asia. Males are capable of growing up to 3 cm in length, females up to 5 cm. The number of their colony reaches 20 million individuals. They are one of the most dangerous insects in the world.
Dasymutilla gloriosa is one of the species of German wasps. It is endemic to North America. Distributed in northeastern Mexico and the southwestern United States in states such as California, Idaho, Nevada and Texas. These small, furry wasps with a body length of about 1 cm were first described in 1868 by Swiss entomologist Henri de Saussure.
Cephalotes is a genus of wood ants (including about 130 species) inhabiting the tropics and subtropics of Central and South America. Their body length varies from 3 to 14 mm. If they accidentally fall from a tree on which they prefer to settle, they are able to “parachute”, landing on the trunk of the same plant. Almost all species of this genus have soldier ants with a flattened head, with which they, like a cork, close the entrances to the nest.
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It had not yet appeared from behind the trees, and Jose, my Brazilian assistant, and I were already shaking on our bicycles along the road, tightly sandwiched on both sides by green walls of lush vegetation. We pedaled diligently, determined to get farther away before the sun brought down its brutal heat on the jungle. But after half an hour we had to jump off our bikes and hurry to a ruined building, half hidden by roadside greenery. The sky suddenly became cloudy, and in the crumbling ruins we hoped to find shelter from the rapidly approaching tropical downpour. But the ruins, alas, turned out to be an abandoned chapel, the roof of which had fallen in long ago. Exposed to bad weather, the walls stood forlornly.
The rain has begun. We leaned tightly against the remains of the stonework, from time to time looking hopefully at the sky, impatiently waiting for it to turn blue again. Suddenly my attention was attracted by something moving on the wet ground. Some creature with legs like stilts and a pair of huge jaws was approaching a small hole in the ground. Here it disappeared into the hole, and a few seconds later it was followed by a second one, then another. The size, color and shape of these animals were unusual and fabulous.
It was over, but every depression on the millions of leaves was filled with water, and at the slightest movement the drops scattered in sparkling splashes in all directions, dousing us from head to toe. However, we continued to watch the hole, watching the animals scurry about, then hiding in their lair, then running out to the surface again. Their shimmering black bodies were a little longer than three centimeters, but when they moved, it seemed that, including legs and antennae, the animals were no shorter than five centimeters. Here, near this abandoned chapel, we quite by chance stumbled upon the lair of the world's largest ants - giant ants that live only in South America.
We have been wandering through the jungles of the Amazon delta for a long time in search of these insects. Sometimes we were able to find individual giant ants proudly striding along the forest floor. But all attempts to follow them to the nest ended in failure. The ants invariably led us into the rubble of fallen tree trunks and almost impenetrable bush thickets, which sooner or later blocked the road. And here in front of us is an open entrance to the home of an entire colony!
The morning chill has disappeared. The sun directed its merciless rays almost vertically downwards, and the jungle steamed even more. We quickly unpacked our luggage. Armed with long tweezers, I carefully approached the entrance to the anthill. It turned out to be wide enough that you could stick your hand through it if you wanted. But this would be madness, because giant ants are famous for their extraordinary ferocity with which they bite and sting anyone who approaches them.
We had a special plan. Jose and I decided to gradually catch all the foragers returning to the nest one by one, as well as all the ants that would come out of the hole. Thus, we hoped to catch most of the colony, so that later we could safely dig up the anthill and see how it works. Jose took a post just behind the hole and observed the situation. His task was to immediately warn me about any attempt by even a single ant to attack me.
Unlike other ants, giant ants do not have a queen, nor do they have special soldier ants, worker ants or orderlies whose duties include fighting mold and fungi. There are no tunnels or galleries in their anthills. The huge black females, who forage for food and do all the work in the anthill, apparently make up the majority of the colony's population. These ferocious creatures, which bite extremely painfully, play a major role in the colony. They are rulers, they are workers, they are also hunters. Now I had to find out all this exactly and see for myself.
Senor, be careful! - Jose shouted in Portuguese. - Crawling alone!
Instantly losing my thoughts, I turned and saw a heavily loaded female running quickly towards the hole. A beetle was held tightly in its jaws, its legs still beating convulsively in the air. This giant woman was carrying home live game. A second later, the ends of my thirty-centimeter tweezers, sparkling in the sun, grabbed her tightly. The enraged female immediately dropped the burden and sank into it with her terrible jaws. She strained all her strength, now squeezing her legs, now stretching them out with force. The tension with which the female tried to escape even changed the shape of her body. And at the end of the ant's tummy, the subcutaneous sting was ferociously prowling, trying to find something to sting. I brought the captive closer to my eyes and saw how drops of poison flowed from the sharp tip of the sting every time it encountered metal.
At this time, Jose warned me again:
- Carefully!
I quickly lowered my first captive into the jug and hastily turned to the next ant, and then to the third, fourth... By noon, dozens of ferocious creatures were swarming in the jug.
Most of the females returning to the burrow were carrying fresh meat: small spiders, beetles and larvae. But from time to time we came across foragers carrying some kind of seed or kernel of a small nut. The ants coming out of the hole often seemed anxious and were more cautious than those coming from the jungle. Several times, sensing danger, they turned sharply and hastily disappeared into the hole.
“Probably,” I thought, “it is not fear that drives them, but they are simply rushing back to the nest to try to save the eggs or protect their cubs from harm.”
But the flow of foragers returning to the hole began to dry up, and we decided that we had caught almost all the inhabitants of the colony. Having looked around carefully one last time, we took up a heavy pick and shovel.
Senor, be careful with these ants!
We did not notice how two Indian lumberjacks approached us. Stopping nearby, they carefully watched us. The eldest of them warned me with alarm:
- Their bite causes fever. If you are bitten by several tokandir, disaster may occur.
I gratefully accepted his warning.
Tokandira! This is what the Brazilian Indians call these giant ants. They are also called feverish or four-stinging ants. This means that if a person is stung four times, he will die immediately. It is difficult to say how much truth is mixed with fiction here, but caution never hurts.
The excavations have begun. Almost immediately we lost the direction in which the hole went underground, because its walls were crumbling. We had to dig a hole one meter in diameter around the entrance to the nest.
It was difficult to dig. There was a whole tangle of roots in the ground, and we had to work with an ax no less than with a pick and shovel. I looked with annoyance at the main culprit of our suffering - a huge fig tree that grew at the very top of the chapel wall. Its roots, like the tentacles of a giant land octopus, hung and spread out in all directions underground.
We had already gone about forty centimeters deeper when we suddenly had to drop the shovel and hastily take up the tweezers and jugs. Together with another lump of damp earth taken out of the hole, we threw away the roof of one of the nest chambers. There was a bunch of ants underneath. About twenty frightened females frantically made their way through the clods that covered them. This was probably the main room of the ant nest: in it we found thirty or forty cocoons. They looked like tiny potatoes, about two and a half centimeters long.
The frightened females, grabbing one cocoon in their jaws, desperately rushed about, trying to save them. But wherever they went, my merciless tweezers reached them. A little time passed, and all the selfless females, along with their precious cocoons, took places in jugs and wide-necked bottles.
When, as it seemed to me, there were no more ants left in this chamber, I carefully pushed the clods of earth to the sides with a thin stick, destroying the wall of the neighboring one. It contained dozens of wriggling white ant larvae. Some of them were large, like cocoons, others were smaller, and others were very tiny, about the size of a pinhead. Few naturalists in the world have ever seen such a rare sight. But that was not all. Soon we found winged males. Each of these brick-red insects had three microscopic lenses arranged in a triangle on its tiny forehead. Lenses can be found in many insects, but rarely are they so noticeable.
The males, very similar in appearance to wasps, were half the size of their jet-black females. These completely helpless members of the colony presented a strange sight in an atmosphere of general confusion and panic. Some of them floundered miserably in place, trying to climb over the cocoons that had piled up on them.
The females, who had emerged from somewhere, again rushed to the aid of the males. Each of them grabbed a male in its jaws and hastily ran away from the “battlefield” in search of saving shelter. My tweezers quickly found them. In the end they all ended up in jugs. In the damp far corner of the nest we found ant eggs. Oblong, needle-thin, and tiny, they were a special concern for the ants. The females grabbed them in whole heaps and again scurried away, still unsuccessfully trying to hide the precious burden somewhere.
Finally we decided that there was nothing interesting left in the nest. Around there were jugs and bottles in which representatives of giant ants of all stages of development were languishing in captivity. We packed our loot and got on our bikes and headed back.
I spent that night without sleep, sorting the trophies and endlessly admiring them. The shrill chorus of cicadas coming from the neighboring rubber plantation provided good musical accompaniment to my studies.
I divided all the caught females, and there were ninety of them, into two equal parts and put them in two large boxes with mesh walls. I poured a layer of damp earth about eight centimeters thick into each box.
"Interesting. - I thought, “will the captives dig a new nest?”
I put most of the cocoons and larvae in one of the cages. The females quickly rushed towards them, greedily grabbing the cocoon, the larva, and rushed around the cage, looking for a way out. Tired of running, some of them laid their burden on the ground and began to diligently lick the soft skin of the larvae. If I gave them food, the females would undoubtedly bring it to the small mouths of their completely helpless larvae: they depend entirely on adult ants for their nutrition.
Cocoons do not need nutrition, because they are completely sealed in a silky shell. They remain this way until the females gnaw through the shell. Then new adult ants will emerge from the cocoons.
About every half hour I inspected the cage containing another group of females. I didn’t put any cocoons, larvae, or eggs there. There were only females there. After a few hours, I noticed that something had happened in this cage. Several ants gathered in a circle, heads inward, like kittens huddled in a tight heap near a saucer of milk.
I was tormented by curiosity for a long time: why do ants behave this way? Unable to bear it, I opened the cage door and, inserting tweezers into it, pushed the females apart. In the center of the circle, folded into a neat pile, about twenty-five eggs glimmered dimly. So I witnessed the attempt of giant ants to produce new “citizens” of the defeated jungle empire.
The next day Jose and I visited the chapel again. In the ruins of the ant city, three females who had survived our raid wandered dejectedly. If it were possible to attribute human feelings to insects, then the appearance of the “Amazons” would express hopeless sadness and complete collapse of hopes. The biological chain of their existence was suddenly broken, and they now did not know how to restore it. The lone troika wandered aimlessly through the heaps of torn up earth, not even making an attempt to dig it. One of the females still held in her jaws a small golden bug - her last prey on her last trip for food.
I turned to Jose.
“I wonder what these castaways will do in the end?”
Let's wait a little aside.
We walked slowly down to the stream that flowed through the jungle. On its muddy bank stood a mango tree, around which there were many fallen fruits lying on the ground. Many large ones with metallic wings sat on the fruits. These were blue menelaus. Their bright coloring contrasted with the strict blackness of the warning coloration of the giant ants. Menelaus resembled ants only in size, because they were also gigantic. Several dozen blue menelaus calmly sucked the juice from rotting mangoes. As we approached, they soared into the air, amazing us with the rainbow tints of their colors, sparkling and some special shimmer of their wings.
It took a long time before we returned to the excavation site. The three long-legged sisters were still wandering through the ruins of their nest. I decided not to catch these last females: maybe nature is using them to create a new colony.
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