Cool Bugs #1 – Myrmecocystus mexicanus

I decided a good regular column would be a post about one of the cool insects I have known during my career.

My first featured bug will be a species of honeypot ant from the southwestern deserts, Myrmecocystus mexicanus.

This is a fun species to mess with because they are the most nocturnal ants I’ve ever seen. Some other species are nocturnal, but you sometimes see them during the day; others you find at night but they can be easily observed with a flashlight. M. mexicanus, however, is completely anti-phototaxic – the second a light is shone on workers, they run away from it. This provides a cool effect when you go out at night an locate a nest, which is very distinctive. When you shine a flashlight on the nest, you see a lot of ants hanging around on the surface that immediately go down the hole, as if they were being slowly sucked. Turn off the light a minute, then turn it back on, and you can repeat the process. Kinda mean to do over and over, I guess, but this is serious minutes of entertainment.

I got to know these ants while working as a field assistant on a grad student’s project. The grad and I mused that it would be great fun to design different types of ant furniture, including an M. mexicanus lamp. The colony could be contained in a hollow lamp, which they could crawl around on but not off (there are handy materials for keeping ants contained). When you turned on the light at night, they would all quietly slip back into the lamp, which would then be ant-free in a couple seconds. Hmm, maybe not a huge money-maker, but it could definitely be marketed to entomologists…

The cool thing about honeypot ants in general (i.e., several species in the genus Myrmecocystus) is that they use some workers, called replete workers, as storage vessels. This is a great way to get through the dry season in a desert. They in turn become famine food for larger animals, including humans – the abdomens are quite sweet and tasty. Some people with captive colonies feed the ants specific foods to get a good flavor in the replete workers. Molasses is supposed to be a good one.

There are several more pictures of the M. mexicanus here.

• Related Posts
• Bookmark
• Tags