In de tuin van mijn contactpersoon alleen al waren er drie verschillende kolonies te vinden, de regio waar hij woont noemt dan ook 'Bully Country".
Myrmecia brevinoda of 'the Giant Bull-dog Ant' is volgens verscheidene bronnen de grootste tot nu toe bekende mierensoort van de wereld waarvan de grootste werksters tot 35mm groot worden.
Deze soort is niet voor beginners, ze zijn namelijk zeer territoriaal en zullen hun nest met hun leven verdedigen.
De werksters hebben zeer krachtige kaken waarmee ze door een krekel bijten als een mes door boter, hun steek is giftig en pijnlijk en kan heel uitzonderlijk allergische reacties opwekken.
(Note: ze worden dubbel zo groot als Myrmecia pavida werksters)
Ik had al een blog op Flickr, ik ga dan ook gewoon de commentaar knippen en plakken bij de foto's hier.
Two workers drinking sugar water.
A smaller worker just stopped drinking.
A big worker of the biggest ant species in the world (slightly bigger than Camponotus gigas).
Note: there are different sizes of ants in this colony, very small workers who care for the brood and the large workers who hunt for prey.
But you can't speak of polymorphism (different castes, like minor and major workers) in this case .
In the middle of the night when it's completely dark, the queen sometimes goes on midnight walk around the nest inspecting everything.
I was following her with a infrared lamp and she stopped immediately when I took the picture.
The queen with a worker, the queen is really large and impressive.
Note: this queen is 35mm big, take a ruler and try to imagine how big she is, you'll be amazed
The queen wasn't too happy with all the attention she was getting and she decided to go back to the nest.
A couple of larvae/grubs after they ate some fruit flies.
Drinking time, you can clearly see the difference in size between the workers.
Just like most other ant species, the workers put small stones and rubble on the larvae to make it easier for them to spin their cocoons.
The queen laid her very first eggs since the colony arrived from Australia, which literally made my day!
A large Myrmecia brevinoda worker.
The very first pupae!
Extra videos.
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Vragen en opmerkingen.
