Weaver Ant

Description:

Oecophylla smaragdina (common names include weaver ant, green ant, green tree ant, and orange gaster) is a species of arboreal ant found in Asia and Australia. They make nests in trees made of leaves stitched together using the silk produced by their larvae. Weaver ants may be red or green. In Malaysia they are sometimes mistakenly labelled "fire ants" because a colloquial name in Malay is semut api; another name is kerengga (real fire ants are in a different genus, Solenopsis). The larvae and pupae are collected and processed into bird food, fish bait and in the production of traditional medicines in Thailand and Indonesia.