Dorymyrmex
awild | March 4, 2010
Who's that odd ant out?
While in sunny Florida last summer (ah, sunshine! I vaguely remember what that looks like), I spent an hour peering into a nest of little Dorymyrmex elegans. These slender, graceful ants are among Florida's more charming insects.
Every few minutes, though, the flow of elegant orange insects out of the nest was interrupted by a darker, more robust ant: Dorymyrmex reginicula. Who was this interloper?
Dorymyrmex reginicula is a temporary social parasite. Mature colonies behave pretty much like normal ants. Workers guard the nest, forage for food, and tend the larvae.…