needle ants
awild | December 10, 2008I see that Pachycondyla chinensis, which people are apparently calling "The Asian Needle Ant", is making headlines this week.
I know very little about P. chinensis, but the ant is apparently becoming widespread in the Southeast. Rob Dunn's lab at NCSU researches the species and has put up a page about it. Also, check out Benoit Guenard's P. chinensis photo gallery.
(Incidentally, Rob Dunn has a new book out about biological discovery. It looks excellent. I'll write more about this later, once I get my hands on a copy.)