המועדפים של arthropodantics

KANYE SPOTTED!! Swarmed by paparazzi but Bianca Censori no where to be seen - heard some rattlings about a new album dropping soon. Mr. West will be returning to Venice to wreak more havoc on the Italians

Surprisingly, nearly every Trachymyrmex arizonensis colony in the area had Strumigenys arizonica associated with them, some with Strumigenys workers wandering around just outside the nest entrance.

The photographed colony was found under a rock.

Raiding what appears to be a Crematogaster sp. colony, based on the pupae they're carrying. Probably C. dentinodis or opaca based on the location.

Seems like they had "checkpoints" where they would pile up raided pupae and larvae, a similar behavior to other army ants like Eciton.

Thanks to @cheetolord02 for spotting them, definitely a cool find.

A single dealate queen was found in a small wash, probably a straggler from a daytime/morning flight. It appears to be the same species as the first phoretica queen found in Arizona, but it is difficult to tell without proper specimen photos for both of them, as a lot of specific features seem to be very dependent on the angle. There are some minor (although probably not notable) differences. Specifically the hair length on the head, mesoscutellar disc, and gaster (maybe). Possibly also the antennal scape length.

Didn't believe my eyes when I first saw it, I never expected that they would actually go this far north. This opens up their range a whole lot, although I do think that they'd still be more common in the south.

Not associated with any other ants, but hyatti, xerophila, and micula are the most common (or at least most conspicuous) Pheidole species in the area. P. rhea may also be present, but I haven't seen them here yet.

I'm not really a Pheidole person-I just don't appreciate them much-but these ants, they were really something. way cooler than the Pheidologetons of Asia in my opinion. Many regrets in these photos would like to try a second some day

Several Solenopsis workers found inside a Pheidole tepicana colony. Worker morphology appears to suggest S. phoretica-group; when compared to known workers of Solenopsis enigmatica (A phoretica-group species from Dominica known from queens and workers), certain similarities are noticeable, such as the sparse pilosity and 10-segmented antennae. 4 Solenopsis workers and a full series of Pheidole tepicana were collected, and will be properly pinned and imaged by Arizona State University soon. I will update this observation with those pictures once I get them.

In the wild, these ants were observed inside the nest chambers of Pheidole tepicana. One worker was observed carrying a pupa. These ants seemed to follow the trails of P. tepicana inside the nest. After collection, Pheidole tepicana workers were observed carrying the Solenopsis workers, who curled into a pupal position (4th image). Thanks to @mason_s for the high quality live images.

S. phoretica-group is not yet known from Arizona, nor have they been associated with P. tepicana.

Short video from the encounter with these ants in the wild: https://youtu.be/dOIiEoAoesc

Large town-type mound of Atta texana, measuring about 51 meter X 22 meter. This is a single texana super-colony, with presumably many queens.

In Louisiana, such expansive mounds are called "ant towns", and Atta texana is therefore known as the "town ant" in Louisiana. I know of a few areas in Texas where similar texana towns occur, but texana towns seem to occur more frequently in Louisiana, and the Louisiana towns are clearly larger than those that I have seen in Texas. Not everything in Texas is bigger.

The area covered by this single texana mound is about 900 square meters (assuming the area of an ellipse 51m X 22m) with an estimated circumference of about 120 meter of the mound. This is about 0.22 acre (≈0.1 hectare) for this single texana mound. From this central mound, the ants likely built underground tunnels radiating out 80-150 meters in all direction, and from the remote exits of these tunnels the ants constructed above-ground foraging trails extending an additional 50-150 meter. So the entire foraging territory of this single ant colony could be well over 50000 square meters = 5 hectares (over 12 acres; area of about 9 football fields, or about 5 soccer fields), perhaps much more.

I estimate that this ant colony is at least 20 years old, perhaps much older.

Although the total area of heavily excavated soil of this single texana colony measured 51 meter X 22 meter, there appeared to be a newer part of the mound (first photo) where the ants had recently excavated much soil, and an older part of the mound (second photo), where the excavated soil was more washed-out by rains and there was less fresh excavate. This could indicate that this colony had expanded its mound into one direction, but not radially in all directions. Such a polarity of Atta mounds, and a shift in one direction as a colony grows (the workers are adding gardens primarily to one area of the mound, expanding the mound in one direction), was also reported by Autuori for Atta sexdens in Brazil.

The mound was at the edge of a clear-cut pine forest, along a road. In forested areas of Louisiana and Texas, I find mature texana colonies primarily at such forest edges, such as in clearings in the forest or along roadsides, and very rarely in closed-canopy dense mature forest. I believe that larger texana colonies migrate to forest edges, such that part of each mound is shaded (for soil moisture?), part of the mound exposed to sun (for warmth in winter?) and to provide unobstructed flight avenues when releasing winged reproductives (alates) during the mating flights in spring.

observation UGM201117-03
elevation 86 meter

Note added 03. April 2021: I posted another observation of a town-type mound of Atta texana from a location nearby: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/72841374