A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Ectatomma tuberculatum
Large red ant, maybe 8mm long. It was carefully carrying a drop of nectar between it's jaws. They collect the nectar from extrafloral nectaries and flowers and when the drop is large, they will transport it back to the nest at the base of the tree or shrub. The nest usually has a dirt "chimney-like" entrance resting against the trunk and I wish I had looked for it. See this great article about Ectatomma tuberculatum biology. http://academic.evergreen.edu/projects/a....
Heavy vegetation, km 11.5, Highway between Chiapa de Corzo and San Cristobal de Las Casas, 865 meters.
While these ants have nests in the ground, usually at the base of a tree, they are not ground foragers and are almost always found on foliage where they obtain nectar from flowers and also attend to homopterans such as Treehoppers.
Spotted on Jul 3, 2014
Submitted on Jul 12, 2014
6 Comments
You are right Lauren, trophallaxis behavior is a very interesting way social insects share information and food
Lauren, Juan: do you think this could be the same or related species of ant? I am still in search for its ID. (Thanks)
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/399...
Thank you Juan, I agree, and I am so happy to have gotten to see one of these carrying it's nectar droplet. Next time I will search for the nest.
This is an Ectatomma ant, probably Ectatomma tuberculatum
Hi Hema, it does look like a Fire Ant, I searched them and they have two bumps on the pedicel and this one only has 1. This ant is really big too, bigger than the Fire Ant workers. Not sure what it is yet. It was also walking on the bush all alone.
Imported Fire ant?