4 replies to this topic

[AntidepressAnt]

I found this ant, already dead, in a waiting room from a hotel in Ubajara, Brazil. It was pretty big (I'd guess 25 mm at a bare minimum), shiny black with a bit of yellow in the front legs, and rather formidable-looking, with big mandibles and an obvious stinging apparatus.

 

 

 

Despite being found in a building this is definitely not a synanthropic species, there were huge, relatively untamed gardens in the hotel, and it was very close to a national park. When I spotted it, I thought it could be one of my dream species, a bullet ant (which is native to my country, but I never saw one and antmaps.org tells me it isn't recorded in my state), but as I got closer to take pictures I could see it definitely wasn't P. clavata.

[ANTdrew]

My first thought was a bullet ant as well.

[Artisan_Ants]

Probably a Neoponera species. They tend to look very similar to bullet ants even though they aren’t. I’m not sure on the exact species here since there are a few whole bunch of Neoponera found in Brazil so it would take forever to figure out which one this is unless you know which species of Neoponera are found in Fortaleza.

[ReignofRage]

Perhaps N. commutata.

[The_Gaming-gate]

Lucky it didn’t sting you. Paraponera/Neoponera.