Turtle Ants

Description:

This was such an exciting find, a lifer! These are Turtle Ants, ants which are not often seen because they are usually high up in trees. They use beetle tunnels as their burrows and do not excavate tunnels of their own. These are all workers, and were coming down a tree close to sunset within the Mayan Ruins of Hochob. They then crossed a large part of the plaza and went into the bushes. They must have been out on a foraging mission. They were about 5 mm long, stout and looked like they were made of pewter. What appears to be a heart-shaped abdomen is actually an enlarged first segment. In some of the pictures, you can see the remaining small segments tucked under that large segment. The heads are square and enlarged and the antennae fit into grooves on the side of the head. The soldiers of some species have a huge disc-shaped head and their only function is to place that disc head in the entrance hole to block the passage of any creature except their own workers. This species does not have a disc-headed soldier. This genus of ants are also the now famous "gliding ants". When one of these ants accidentally fall from an upper branch, it can semi-glide itself towards the trunk of the tree and safely return to it's nest.

Habitat:

On the trunk of a tree and on the ground in a long, large column of hundreds of ants. It was very impressive.

Notes:

These ants are not considered warriors and mainly use their odd shapes for defense of their burrows. Advanced species that have disc-headed soldiers (see the references) are highly specialized to fit (ie: block) a single type of beetle tunnel. http://scienceblogs.com/myrmecos/2010/04.... http://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Cephalotes. http://naturalista.conabio.gob.mx/observ.... http://academic.evergreen.edu/projects/a.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalotes.