Transcript
Picture yourself in a rainforest, on the island of Borneo.
[Borneo forest soundscape fades in]
The moist air surrounds you, and it’s almost dark here, so close to the ground. Trees are catching all the light.
You are walking up the trunk of a Dipterocarp tree, with care. Ideally you would like not to make any bad encounters so far from home.
And you stumble upon the remains of a very bizarre battle scene… Two ants, glued to each other.
Hi and welcome to the Insect Insights, chill insect stories to relax and wonder, available wherever podcasts are. If you like this podcast, you can subscribe, leave a review and even an insect question, on spotify or on the website. I am Max, your host, and I hope you are ready to dive into insect knowledge for another insight!
What a discovery for you, little Myrmicaria ant. You were already a bit out of your comfort zone, on this trunk. And what a shock, to be encountering this battle scene! The tree ants are really surprising.
You are mostly used to the ground, the greenery, the lower vegetation. With the forest changing, your kind is now living closer to the trees, and to the tree ants…
And here you are, touching this weird ghost of a fight with the tip of your antenna, sensilla all alert.
A strange yellow matter is entangling both ant bodies, smelling and looking like… Some sort of glue. Some gooey substance.
It seems to have been coming from the rear end of one of the ants, but not much remains of it… It’s like the butt of the ant, the gaster, exploded. You can see the big pockets of its mandibular gland, in the gaster, are completely torn.
And here are these two ants, glued, and frozen in fight. Holding each other by the mandibles. Until decay do them appart, as death couldn’t.
It must be some kind of defense, from the exploding ant, to be sure the other one stays in place and can’t cause any harm!
How strange are tree ants. You should go back to the ground, little Myrmicaria. Before the exploding ants catch you. Surely they wouldn’t treat your intruding in a kind way.
Sources
Laciny, A.; Zettel, H.; Kopchinskiy, A.; Pretzer, C.; Pal, A.; Abu Salim, K.; Javad Rahimi, M.; Hoenigsberger, M.; Lim, L.; Jaitrong, W.; Druzhinina, I. S. Colobopsis Explodens Sp. n., Model Species for Studies on “Exploding Ants” (Hymenoptera, Formicidae), with Biological Notes and First Illustrations of Males of the Colobopsis Cylindrica Group. ZK 2018, 751, 1–40. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.751.22661.
Widodo, E. S.; Naito, T.; Mohamed, M.; Hashimoto, Y. Effects of Selective Logging on the Arboreal Ants of a Bornean Rainforest. Entomological Science 2004, 7 (4), 341–349. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1479-8298.2004.00082.x.
Chung, A. Y. C.; Chew, S. K. F.; Majapun, R.; Nilus, R. Insect Diversity of Bukit Hampuan Forest Reserve, Sabah, Malaysia. J. Threat. Taxa 2013, 5 (10), 4461–4473. https://doi.org/10.11609/JoTT.o3243.4461-73.