Bull ant pictures (Myrmecia sp)

[Dennis Nedry]

Myrmecia nigrocincta/Orange jack jumper ant:

This queen was super nervous when I got her. Now she's become very aggressive since her first worker has arrived, she has no problem with attacking my tongs or taking down an adult cricket twice her size

Myrmecia fulvipes/Golden tailed bull ant:



Out of about 50 pics these were the only moderately good ones of this ant, it absolutely would not stay still, unfortunately I didn't get a clear photo of it attacking and killing the spider. It got attacked a couple times by smaller ants that were trying to steal the dead spider which only made it harder to get photos

I'll probably post more pics of any other Myrmecia I find in the future.

 

[Inverts4life1]

Jeebus, I'd fly to Australia just to see those in person...or just to see any of the ant species there.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Jeebus, I'd fly to Australia just to see those in person...or just to see any of the ant species there.

Don't get too close though, theyre quick to attack anything within a few metres of the nest

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Myrmecia nigrocincta:



Update: Two of the larvae have become pupae and the queen is starting to prowl around the enclosure less now that there's no big hungry grubs to feed. She only leaves her test tube to drink honey from the bottle cap

 

[The Snark]

Amazing pictures! I'd suggest a super fast auto exposure camera like our Nikon D3400. Auto shoots up to ~15 shots per second in focus. I've got prefect focus shots of bicyclists and cars zooming past.

What I find ironic is people rarely look at these ants and feel squeamish. The average spider bite is small change compared to the hurt these monsters lay down when you so much as get within yard of them. A venom genetically engineered over the eons to cause anaphylaxis.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Amazing pictures! I'd suggest a super fast auto exposure camera like our Nikon D3400. Auto shoots up to ~15 shots per second in focus. I've got prefect focus shots of bicyclists and cars zooming past.

What I find ironic is people rarely look at these ants and feel squeamish. The average spider bite is small change compared to the hurt these monsters lay down when you so much as get within yard of them. A venom genetically engineered over the eons to cause anaphylaxis.

I'll look into the camera! I really need to find something that'll let me take pics of flying birds or swift spiders

And I completely agree with the venom, Myrmecia pyriformis (one of the much bigger species) is supposedly more venomous than some cobras

 

[The Snark]

I'll look into the camera! I really need to find something that'll let me take pics of flying birds or swift spiders

While no doubt people will extoll the virtues of all sorts of cameras, three aspects of this Nikon have me completely won over. 1, the auto shoot. Mash the button and it fires continuously and the various focal locations really grab moving objects, 2, it takes those high speed shots at 24 meg pixels, and 3, it appears to run on sunlight and cuddling. The dang battery seems to last forever on a single charge. We took it on several photo shoots for around 500 pics then left it sitting on my desk for over a month. Upon checking it the battery was still at 80%.

 

[Ratmosphere]

That’s so rad! Where do you find these?

 

[shutout2000]

That’s so rad! Where do you find these?

They are an Australian species.. queens can be difficult to get your hands on. Illegal to even have in the U.S.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

That’s so rad! Where do you find these?

I see bull ants all over the place here, they're pretty common in parks and beach picnic areas. The toothless ones like the fulvipes above are much harder to find though, and I don't ever see nigrocincta in my area but I've seen a few near Lake Eildon and there's apparently heaps in Brisbane. The most common bull ants I see are giant purple or black ones (don't know the species they all look the same to me) and jack jumper ants (M. pilosula)

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Massive giant bull ant queen I caught today at the same park, Myrmecia pyriformis maybe? About 38mm long not including the legs or antennae




Saw two of these super aggressive giant bull ant workers (They resemble Myrmecia simillima but a different colour). One of them attacked the phone while I took pics. They'd concealed their nest entrance very well



Didn't get any pics but while I was there I found a couple Myrmecia piliventris workers, which is another golden-tailed toothless bull ant, very similar to the fulvipes in one of the above posts but slightly larger and with black legs rather than orange and about 10 Myrmecia pilosula freaking out on the track after a bike ran too close to their nest. There were heaps of wolf spiders and their burrows, I caught a single baby wolfie but some of the burrows were absolutely massive (the biggest burrows were about 4cm diameter and the burrow entrance is usually just bigger than the spider so there must be some truly monstrous wolfies here)

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Update: the giant bull ant queen pictured above has laid a single egg, hopefully she's fertile.

Caught a second giant queen bull ant, probably the same species, outside my front door. Still has her wings so I'm not sure if she's fertile or not, fingers crossed she is

The third Myrmecia nigrocincta worker has hatched from its pupa, there's also a very large batch of larvae and eggs. I should move them over to a proper setup soon

No pictures because I want to keep them disturbed as little as possible, especially the giant queens, sorry about that. Might get some more pics if I go down to that park again on the weekend. Might also be going to the Grampians on the holidays so that probably means more Myrmecia pics and potentially some peacock spiders as well

 

[shutout2000]

Be sure you are giving her protein through the founding process.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Be sure you are giving her protein through the founding process.

Yup, honey and dead crickets is all I'm giving her right now. Tried a piece of grape with the winged queen

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Myrmecia nigriceps:

Pretty similar in appearance to my nigrocincta, but lacking the black segment in the centre of the thorax and about three times larger than nigrocincta. This one was about 20 minutes dive outside the Grampians national park infront of the house I was staying at. I actually gave it the earwig that this worker is attacking because the ants were refusing to come a good enough distance from the nest entrance where I could get a photo, the earwig is an introduced species from Europe and it was living in my room so I wasn't too concerned about killing it

 

[Dave Jay]

@Dennis Nedry , there's lots of ants advertised on Gumtree and seeing this thread reminded me of an ad I saw a while ago so I searched just now and it was the species you have, Myrmecia nigrocincta, $180 for a queen!!! Spending $50 on a scorpion doesn't seem so crazy now!

 

[Dennis Nedry]

@Dennis Nedry , there's lots of ants advertised on Gumtree and seeing this thread reminded me of an ad I saw a while ago so I searched just now and it was the species you have, Myrmecia nigrocincta, $180 for a queen!!! Spending $50 on a scorpion doesn't seem so crazy now!

Only $180? For Myrmecia that's cheap, really cheap. I've seen queens advertised for 300-400 dollars, they're crazy expensive. I may actually buy a Myrmecia tepperi queen for $180 which I've seen online, it's a stunning black and gold species

 

[Dave Jay]

Only $180? For Myrmecia that's cheap, really cheap. I've seen queens advertised for 300-400 dollars, they're crazy expensive. I may actually buy a Myrmecia tepperi queen for $180 which I've seen online, it's a stunning black and gold species

Wow! I knew people kept ants but I hadn't searched for ads before. I've always wanted to set up a colony properly, as a kid I had ant farms, but never a proper colony.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Wow! I knew people kept ants but I hadn't searched for ads before. I've always wanted to set up a colony properly, as a kid I had ant farms, but never a proper colony.

They're pretty easy to keep, I'd recommend something like Camponotus or Iridomyrmex as something to start out with rather than something like Myrmecia if you ever get into it

 

[The Snark]

Just curious. What senses do these ants use when they decide to maim humans? Scent? Eyesight? Radar?