The Ant

*scurries in with an egg sac*

Hello Everypony, I'm back with another insect for you! This one was requested by Lyon. Yes Lyon, I do have ants for you! :3

This ant goes by the scientific name of Streblognathus aethiopicus and the specimens I found, had lesser developed characteristics of this species but still had them, they are matt black, with a shiny abdomen, so I suspect that these are variants of the species. Seeing as it has no common name, I will just call it "This ant"

Okay, a few interesting facts, This ant is the largest worker ant in the region I live in, (measuring in at 17 mm-20 mm) and this species is predatory, feeding on insects and other things if they cannot get their mandibles on the former. Their colonies are very small, often only going up to a couple dozen, and they don't have trails either, they simply go where they please, and find food, and find their way back.

Another interesting thing about these ants is that they don't have a queen, one of the workers, simply mates, and handles all the egg laying. They have quite powerful mandibles too, they are a reddish brown colour. What makes these ants unique is little spikes on the back part of the thorax unfortunately, the ones on these guys are too small for the camera to see clearly.

These ants are all over my garden, I find them eating and collecting a sort of fungus off of my lemon tree, I think there may be insects and parasites on the fungus that they are getting. I got two specimens, a worker and a soldier, here are a few pictures. unfortunately they would not keep still, so I had to put them under this glass.



This one as you can see is a soldier



Here's one of both of them, you can see the mandibles clearly here



And finally here is a side view of the Soldier, the way it is build makes it looks quite powerful and formidable.

Whelp, I hope you enjoyed this Blog post, especially you Lyon :3

If you have any questions or requests feel free to leave them in the comments and I will satisfy them as best I can!

As for me I have to get this egg to the new nest! Simon out!! *scurries away*