Pheidologeton diversus

[crucis]

I stumbled upon a trail of P.diversus 'Marauder Ants' in a park, they love meat so i made their day B)

The size difference between the major and minor workers has always fascinated me. I measured the largest majors ('mega-supermajors??' or something) and they are over 10 times the length (and prob many many times the mass) of the minors. They look like siege engines, their heads alone are big as a house compared to their smallest sisters lol.. and I love how they give free bus-rides

the biggest ones below are one caste below the largest

12 HOURS LATER:

24 HOURS LATER (lots of majors staying behind to gnaw on bones):

 

[crucis]

P.S. this is one wicked image i got from the web (c. Mark Moffett), it shows one of the largest castes of major doing one of the things she's made to

 

[Peter Clausen]

Neat photos! I know there are a couple ant guys on this forum who will appreciate these photos. I've had some encounters with the castes of leafcutter ants, who have more spikes along their bodies than yours, but don't have the tremendous difference is size or coloration.

What exactly is that larger individual doing to her sister?

Is there going to be anything left of that bone? I got dibs if nobody else has called it!

 

[crucis]

Neat photos! I know there are a couple ant guys on this forum who will appreciate these photos. I've had some encounters with the castes of leafcutter ants, who have more spikes along their bodies than yours, but don't have the tremendous difference is size or coloration.

What exactly is that larger individual doing to her sister?

Is there going to be anything left of that bone? I got dibs if nobody else has called it!

Haha thanks! Huddled over the site with my camera, i braved lots of odd glances by random folk. In that particular park, such behaviour is limited to grade schoolers B)

Oh, actually the website I took that particular photo from stated that the larger individual was clobbering a termite soldier (like in one of those epic termite-ant battles we see sometimes on documentaries). Newly-matured majors are probably around that termite's colouration, though, so they will look pretty similar.

Alas, I never found out what the ants would've done with the bone. When I came back the next day someone had swept it into a gutter and kicked the foraging trail (mud walls, rampants, little sentry hills and all) to ruin!!

 

[Peter Clausen]

I see it as a termite now and even the little sisters engaged in a bit of ankle-biting.

Well, nature will still find a use for that bone and it will eventually make its way back to the ants in some form.

Better to incur odd glances from strangers than familiars!

 

[Idolofreak]

Ants are such hard workers! The time lapse photos AMAZED me. Sucks that someone DESTROYED their nest. People can be so ignorant to how cool and important bugs are. The intricacies in an ant nest alone are just AMAZING.

 

[crucis]

Sucks that someone DESTROYED their nest. People can be so ignorant to how cool and important bugs are.

Well said...

I remember spending my entire first year at high school trying to stop my classmates from dissecting grasshoppers. They got them from the empty lot next to my school and would spend recess pulling their legs off and slicing the squirming bodies to pieces segment by segment.

It was heinous to watch and the strange thing (to me at least) was that most of the guys who were doing this were otherwise perfectly nice people.

Better to incur odd glances from strangers than familiars!

This is my operating philosophy when i go looking for bugs