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Mystery Myrmecophile

May 20, 2009 by myrmecos

mystery3

I photographed this weird…sluggy thing, I guess you could say, in an ant nest in subtropical Argentina.

Ten points to the first person who picks what it is.

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Posted in Ants, Science | Tagged Insects, mystery, Photography | 12 Comments

12 Responses

on May 20, 2009 at 11:21 pm Christopher Taylor

Is it some sort of lycaenid caterpillar?
on May 21, 2009 at 12:37 am MarekB

I know, I know! 😉
This strange creature is a fly larva, one of the many species of a hoverfly subfamily Microdontinae. As far as I know, larvae of all hitherto described species are myrmecophilous.
They are so bizzare, they have been described as mollusks on four different occasions (!).
They are brood predators in ant nests.
- on May 21, 2009 at 4:33 am Kai
  
  Syrphids as obligate nest parasites? How cool is that!
on May 21, 2009 at 6:57 am Matt

Duh. It’s clearly a tiny, one-limbed turtle.
on May 21, 2009 at 8:59 am Martin

Yes, I agree, it is clearly a Microdontini… wonderful picture! Very interesting biology…
on May 21, 2009 at 9:24 am James C. Trager

Sure looks syrphid-microdontine to me, too. And with a Linepithema, cool! I thought these flies always “liked” formicines.

(PS – Gary Alpert will want to see your pictures of this one.)
on May 21, 2009 at 1:29 pm Marinkina

Качество друзей тоже надо учитывать. Дональд Трамп, например, на двадцатку потянет.
on May 21, 2009 at 2:47 pm myrmecos

Wow, I clearly have a bright bunch of commentators!
on May 21, 2009 at 2:58 pm Mom

Translation of the above from Russian?

“It’s necessary to take into account the quality of friends. Donald Trump, for example, will reach twenty.” Huh? (I’ll ask Lena Nikolyevna at next Tuesday’s lesson…) XXXMom
on May 22, 2009 at 8:31 am Ant

ROFL at the Russian conversation.
on May 22, 2009 at 9:58 am James C. Trager

With my extremely rusty Russian, I suspected that containing the words Donald Trump, or as it is written in the comment “Donalyd Tramp”, this is spam of some sort.
on June 1, 2009 at 9:08 pm Psi Wavefunction

Yeah, the Russian is spam, it seems:
“The quality of friends must also be taken into account. Donald Trump, for example, would reach 20” whatever the fuck that means…fluency in the language is useless there…

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