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Synemosyna formica
EXTREMELY ant-like. This species holds its front pair of legs like antennae, so it looks like any other ant. It grows to around 5 or 6 millimeters long. The posterior part of the cephalothorax is quite narrow, making it appear more ant-like. Its palps are red, the rest of the body is brown.
Yard/tree line
This was a wonderful surprise to me in the field. I had assumed that ant-mimic spiders only occur in the tropics, but there are indeed temperate species. I was sitting down watching the underside of a leaf of a Catalpa tree and noticed this spider, which I thought was just an ant. It didn't run away to a different part of the leaf like all the other ants I saw that day did, however, so I became suspicious. It was small, so I couldn't really pick out any details, but it looked different enough from other ants that I decided to capture it and look at it more closely later. Sure enough, I looked at it under a hand lens and a microscope and it had four pairs of legs (then it spun so web, so that definitely ruled out an ant). This is a marvelous spider, I can't do it justice with words (or even my picture), it's just that good a mimic of an ant. Simply extraordinary. So the lessons learned from this capture were: 1. pay attention to the little things and 2. learn some animal behavior!
Spotted on Aug 10, 2011
Submitted on Aug 13, 2011
10 Comments
How does the ant mimicking spider defend itself?
The ant mimicking spider is fierce because it attacks without hesitation. What makes it deadly is the formic acid it shoots out. It puts out its jaws to look like an ant.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikijunior:...
I would be surprised if it did, since it's just a spider. I would imagine that it merely mimics the appearance of an ant, not the extreme of spraying formic acid. If it did though, that would be just a remarkable case of co-evolution in action.
The poison gland-an ants poison gland holds a chemical that smells like vinegar.That chemical is called formic acid.Formic acid is used by the ants to kill their prey and to ward off attackers.The ants first bite their enemy then spray it with formic acid.
I know that red ants bite can really sting.
I am not sure though if this organism sprays formic acid too.
Cool. I really like mimics.
a wolf in sheep's clothing!
Sort of, Emma. Formica is the Latin word for ant, so I assume that's where the species name was derived from, since it's an ant-mimic. I'm not sure about any origins for the genus name, however.
Why the name Formica? anything to do with Formic acid?
Truly amzing ,can be easily mistaken for an Ant!
Thanks Dan! Gotta make sure people are paying attention!
Great story and nice tag!