On my recent visit to the coastal forests of Kwazulu-Natal I noticed basketball-like growths on many of the Acacia trees. In North America, any large gray ball you see hanging off a tree branch is liable to be a hornet’s nest. In South America, it’s probably a carton nest of fierce little Azteca ants. The equivalent in South Africa? I didn’t know.
A little bit of poking around in the acacias revealed the culprit. It was Crematogaster tricolor, an orange ant about half a centimeter long:
They didn’t appreciate the disturbance, apparently, because they came after me without hesitation:
Any significant Schmidt rating? Beautiful shots, as always.
Friday Ark #205…
We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….? Visit all the …
I’m going to guess the Schmidt rating for this one is fairly low, as it is for most (all?) Crematogaster spp. Indeed, I think the most any species in this genus does is pinch with the mandibles, then smear venom with a spatulate sting, rather than pierce and inject venom. But they make up for the small pain inflicted by an individual with aggressive behavior and numbers!
The ant is a beauty, well-named, and beautifully rendered in the images.
interesting
Im in south america and have seen some of those balls hanging on the trees, but always abandoned
James you’re right – the rating is very low. They will quickly swarm all over the parts of your body touching any substrate to which the nest is attached and bite – which is more irritating than painfull.