myrmecophil's Favorites

Workers were found in a makeshift termite bait made of a PVC pipe with holes drilled into the side, it was buried in the ground (the top of it was surface level so you could access the inside and a stone was placed on top to act as a cover) and pine wood was put inside, the wood was rotting when I checked it. Termites (Reticulitermes sp.) were present and workers were seen walking in the tunnels that the termites made in the wood. Workers were also seen on the inside and bottom of the PVC pipe.

Very happy to have found these and definitely wasn't expecting to.

Mycetosoritis hartmanni colonies are very abundant throughout the Coastal Sand Plain in South Texas. Hartmanni nests are easiest to find here in March and April, when colonies seem to do most of the excavation during the year. I post photos of two different hartmanni colonies, showing a volcano-type mound where the nest entrance is in a shallow depression in the center of the excavation crater, and the more common pointy mound-type where the nest entrance is at the apex of a steep mound. Both types of mounds measure about 4-7 centimeter across at the base, and the mound shapes shown here are characteristic for hartmanni (there is no other ant species here that produces these kinds of mounds). Hartmanni colonies have been consistently very abundant in this area since I first collected ants here 20 years ago.

Whereever I have found hartmanni in sandy areas in South Texas, I have also found closeby two other fungus-growing ant species, Mycetomoellerius turrifex and Atta texana. The distribution of hartmanni further north in Texas is more spotty, but always in sandy areas.

The correct spelling is hartmanni, not hartmani as currently used at iNAT.

elevation 13 meter

I'm somewhat sure this is mysticum since queens were flying, but I'm having trouble distinguishing from M. rogeri. The clypeus looks round enough for mysticum...

Extracted from under the bark of a dead log. Log had been pointed out to me by Fielisy "Fidel" Bemaheva, who is an extremely knowledgeable old hand at Madagascar ants.