An Indonesian Zooillogix reader, Harianto Talim, grossly overestimated our entomological abilities and asked us to help him identify an Indonesian ant that he has never seen before. In this blurry series of photos, you can see that the ant is bright orange and green and may or may not smoke cigarettes. It should be noted however that when confronted about the lighter in the ant's pocket by its mother, the queen, the ant claimed it just carries the lighter around to light other ants' cigarettes to look cool.
So nerdy readers, time to prove your mettle by identifying this random blurry ant! There will be a prize for whomever figures it out or, alternatively, whomever provides the most patently untrue answer.
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It is the Bornean Opal-Assed Ant, a species known for its absurd coloring and its tendency to turn up in houses. They are particularly fond of orangutan meat.
Here is a good place to start. http://www.discoverlife.org/mp/20o?guide=Ants_Indonesia
Oecophylla queen ?
neil - impressive
Easy, it's a gummy ant.
Neil nailed it! certainly a queen of the ant Oecophylla and the species being smaragdina.
in the "real" answer category, neil wins the prize.
neil, i have to ask, how did you get that so quickly?
id also like to thank ajay, antologist extraodinaire for unwittingly judging the contest. http://web.mac.com/ajaynarendra/AjayNarendra/Home-Ajay.html
I vacuumed under the sofa cushions the other day and found a lighter, obviously for the same purpose.
Orange and green is an exceptionally rare color combination in ants, and given the location and the size of the insect there is really only one option available.
These are apparently lemony in flavor and good on salad.
Woah, I had totally forgotten about this; but yeah as Alex noted, I'm just basically a genius. What do I win? A salad? A lighter? Lifetime's supply of free drinks at Benny's bar?
neil - where do you live? that may help determine if your gift will survive the trip.
while I often love to play this game... I'm too late and there was too little info to really help much. :)
Cool picturs thoght! There are some really lovely hymenopterans out there. People get used to the usual ants or bees they see every day.
thankssss
this information most important for me.
thanks...
Neil nailed it! certainly a queen of the ant Oecophylla and the species being smaragdina.
Great idea! This is fun!
How brilliant! I want to have something like that too! Designed to be more convenient!I loved it