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It has been referred to as the "panda ant" due to its coloration, consisting of a white coat covering all of its head except the eyes, and black and white spots appearing over the rest of its body. The coloration is aposematic , serving as a warning to predators of its painful and powerful sting.
Some soldier safari ants make tunnels to provide a safe route for the workers. Seasonally, when food supplies become short, they leave the hill and form marching columns of up to 20,000,000 ants, which constitute a considerable threat to humans, though they can be easily avoided as a column can only travel about 20 meters in an hour.
The cuticle (outer exoskeleton of the body) is not sculptured and is covered with either scattered or spare setae, which are different types of bristle or hair-like structures. [14] The body structure shows that Sphecomyrma ants were medium-sized formicids. Workers are known to have stingers. [3]
These ants are commonly called "crazy ants" because instead of following straight lines, they dash around erratically. They have a broad distribution, including much of the tropics and subtropics , and are also found in buildings in more temperate regions, making them one of the most widespread ant species in the world.
Head view of a soldier with characteristically shaped mandibles. Unlike most ant species, Eciton burchellii is polymorphic, meaning that features amongst smaller groups within the colony vary in size: a colony contains workers ranging from 3 mm to 12 mm, with each specific "caste" suited to specialized tasks.
“Ants have palates, and if they don’t take the bait immediately, you’ll need to try a different formula,” says Suiter. “It’s not like they’re going to change their minds.”
Most ant species will send individual scouts to find food sources and later recruit others from the colony to help; however, army ants dispatch a cooperative, leaderless group of foragers to detect and overwhelm the prey at once. [3] [5] Army ants do not have a permanent nest but instead form many bivouacs as they travel.
The specific epithet of the ant, clavata, means "club-shaped". [2] The generic name, Paraponera, translates to "near-Ponera". [3] Because of its fearsome reputation, the ant has several Native American, Spanish, and Portuguese local names in different geographical areas; perhaps the best-known of these is the Venezuelan nickname hormiga veinticuatro (the "24 ant" or "24-hour ant"), referring ...