Forelius are incredibly fast.

They do slow down when they find something interesting, like this dead honey bee.

What is on the honey bee’s wing? It had just rained so there’s [...]]]> Sometimes it is hard to conceive how much ants move their colonies around. For example, this week a fairly large Forelius colony showed up in our yard.

Forelius are incredibly fast.

They do slow down when they find something interesting, like this dead honey bee.

What is on the honey bee’s wing? It had just rained so there’s water condensation.

I guess it could be refraction, but it looks almost like paint.

We also found the little ants will slow down for honey. Talk about exploding ants

I hope these stay for awhile.

Any ants on the move in your area?

Cool, there are males with the workers.

Males are usually dark colored, so it was interesting to see golden yellow ones.

In my haste to get a few photographs. I didn’t [...]]]> It finally rained in Arizona. But last week, before it rained, I chased out a bunch of Camponotus festinatus by watering the front yard with a hose.

Cool, there are males with the workers.

Males are usually dark colored, so it was interesting to see golden yellow ones.

In my haste to get a few photographs. I didn’t really notice the other ants around the males.

Like that really big soldier. What’s up with her?

Once I was back inside and the ants had retreated I downloaded the photographs and took a look. Hum, wing-scars on the alitrunk.

Blame it on the heat…

For more about Camponotus festinatus, see this previous post.

Have you ever missed the obvious while shooting photographs?

I visited two states (United States) last week. Can you tell which states I visited based on the scientific names of these two ants?

Bonus points if you spell the species name of the ants in the second photograph correctly

Cataglyphis is a species of ant that runs on the hot sands during the day. Individual ants look for food and when they find [...]]]> Suppose you were running one day and you came to a barrier across your path. What would you do? Would you stop, assess the height and then go under if you could?

Cataglyphis is a species of ant that runs on the hot sands during the day. Individual ants look for food and when they find something to eat, they pick it up and run straight home as fast as they can. Spending too long on the hot sands can be dangerous. Researchers from the University of Zurich have shown that the ants can figure out how high an obstacle is just by looking at it (as they run towards it), and lower their body the correct amount to run under without even stopping. Talk about a high speed limbo! If the researcher made the barrier out of something the ants couldn’t see, however, then they had to stop and feel the barricade with their antennae.

Several groups of scientists have been studying many aspects of how Cataglyphis gets around.

First, the ants were shown to use visual clues such as position of the sun and polarized light to find their way back to the nest, as shown in this video.

Recently scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology are looking at how ants use smells in the environment to orient themselves as well. Because these ants pick up dead insects for food, it would be likely that they would key in on odors. Using odors to create maps is a natural next step.

It makes sense for ants to have multiple systems for orientation. If your compass fails, why not have gps?

Now I know why I always orient to those bakery shops.

Science Daily has several articles about this ant:

How Low Can You Go? Ants Learn To Limbo.

No Place Like Home: Ant Navigation Skills Used In Robot Navigation

Smelling Scenery in Stereo: Desert Ants Perceive Odor Maps in Navigation

Desert Ants Smell Their Way Home

Check out the lovely Formica.

This worker was climbing up and down grass stalks.

There were enough that I was able to follow them back to their nest.

The workers were quite delicate for Formica ants.

Look at those antennae!

The nest entrance [...]]]> In addition to the Crematogaster from the last post, we encountered a number of interesting ants last weekend.

Check out the lovely Formica.

This worker was climbing up and down grass stalks.

There were enough that I was able to follow them back to their nest.

The workers were quite delicate for Formica ants.

Look at those antennae!

The nest entrance was a large opening, like a half moon-shaped cave.

Here’s another of apparently the same species. Both are on quite a steep slope.

Anyone know what they might be? I’m assuming Formica because of the position of the eyes high on the head, etc.

People always comment on the tiny ants that run rapidly along sidewalks in great numbers.

Here’s a very amateur video in real time, to give you an idea of their speed at about 90 degrees F. I particularly enjoy the traffic noises in the second part. I thought the revving [...]]]> We have some amazing ants in Arizona.

People always comment on the tiny ants that run rapidly along sidewalks in great numbers.

Here’s a very amateur video in real time, to give you an idea of their speed at about 90 degrees F. I particularly enjoy the traffic noises in the second part. I thought the revving sounds were quite appropriate.

Based on their behavior, I figured they were genus Forelius.

These particular ants are apparently Forelius mcccooki rather than the common Forelius pruinosus, based on the hairs on their antennal scapes, etc. Dale Ward has a page about Forelius pruinosus in Phoenix. Alex Wild has photographs of F. mccooki.

The fast little ants stretched the limits of my photography skills.

Here I tried the doubler.

One thing I noticed while watching is that the F. mccooki workers seem to have greater than usual amount of color variation.

For most ants, if you open a colony you will see lighter than usual individuals. These are the newly emerged callows. Their color will darken over time. Generally the callows work inside the nest.

Seeing the mix of light and dark colors in the foragers is less common. Alex Wild has a photograph of color variation in Forelius pruinosus workers.

What’s going on? First of all, Forelius exoskeletons are easy to see through, as Dale Ward shows.

Secondly, the colonies have multiple queens and could be genetically diverse.

I have another idea, but without a lab or lab equipment, I’ll have to wait on that one.

Continuing Toothbrush Experiment:

What I can test is whether Forelius ants are attracted to a toothbrush. When I put the toothbrush into a foraging trail, no response.

I’ll keep carrying the toothbrush.

If you live in the San Francisco area and are interested in citizen science, you might want to check into the California Academy of Science’s Bay Area Ant Survey.

First you need to request an ant collecting kit from the Naturalist Center (see information at the link above). [...]]]> Ant-related Citizen Science Project

If you live in the San Francisco area and are interested in citizen science, you might want to check into the California Academy of Science’s Bay Area Ant Survey.

First you need to request an ant collecting kit from the Naturalist Center (see information at the link above). Then collect ants. When you are done, send your ant-filled vial and data sheet back to the Naturalist Center. Results will be uploaded to AntWeb and your contribution will become part of the scientific record. Cool!

If you are a teacher in the Bay area, and you would like your class to participate, ant collecting kits are available.

Leafcutter Ant Exhibit

Have you seen the leafcutter ant exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park? It is in the 4-story rainforest.

The food is added in a clear plastic container.

The ants then trail back a fake vine back to the nest display area.

Leafcutter ants are cool to watch no matter what the circumstances.

Don’t expect to get spectatcular photographs, however, because flash photography is prohibited.

These ant made the news recently when they managed to escape from their enclosure. Best-Laid Plans Fail to Trap Ants at Academy of Sciences by Jim Carlton gives the details. I’m not surprised, ants are very good at finding their way out of artificial nests.

I am always surprised, however, at what the fungus garden looks like. I guess I expect a fungus garden to look, well, moldy. Instead it looks like fresh, white cotton batting.

Here’s some pics from a different leafcutter ant exhibit:

In this case the yellow is corn meal they are using as substrate for the fungus.

Do you know if anyone has ever tried tasting it? Aren’t leafcutter ants amazing?

Any idea what the yellow grape-like objects are hanging from the nest?

The honey ants are the camels of the ant family. They live in dry areas throughout the world, but particularly the deserts of Australia, where food and [...]]]> Honey or honey pot ants is a common name of a number of unrelated species with similar habits.

Any idea what the yellow grape-like objects are hanging from the nest?

The honey ants are the camels of the ant family. They live in dry areas throughout the world, but particularly the deserts of Australia, where food and water may be scarce for long periods of time. To cope, honey ants have unique storage tanks for holding liquids. These storage tanks are special worker ants called repletes.

When times are good and food is abundant, the repletes drink the extra liquid food and swell up like balloons. Then they hang around, literally, from the ceiling of the nest, until times are tough. If the colony runs out of food, the other workers entice the repletes to spit up their reserves to share with the others. Having repletes is kind of like having liquid food in the bank.

Because of their name, honey ants are sometimes mistakenly thought to feed on sweets, but the repletes may also store fluid from animal prey. Dr. Bill Brown used to tell a story about how he and some other scientists were digging up a nest of honey pot ants. Having heard that people in the southwestern United States and Australia eat the swollen repletes filled with honeydew, the other scientists decided to taste a few. Dr. Brown declined however, because he had noticed nearby foraging ants were gathering fluids from dead earthworms.