EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Ant Wars

Unidentified red and black ants
Seti River, Nepal

Explanation:  On a warm summer day along the banks of the Seti River in central Nepal, I happened to glance down, and there at my feet was a battle scene playing out in miniature.

I don't know the species ... but there was one lone, larger black ant being attacked brutally by a swarm of smaller red ants.  I don't know what triggered the attack, and if the red ants were defending some resource, and who started the mini-war ... but it raged on for some time, with the black ant valiantly taking continual punishment and returning bites in kind.

This was indeed a battle scene in miniature.  Look at the size of the tip of my pen compared to the soldiers:

Animals that defend a territory against strangers are known as the "dear-enemy phenomenon," such as has been described in the aggression between colonies of Pheidole seed-harvesting ant species in the Mojave Desert of California (Langen et al. 2000).  This seems to be at play here, in south Asia.

No, I don't know who won this battle, but the black ant was seriously outnumbered, surrounded, and unable to escape, try as it did.   

  
Information:
     Langen, T.A., F. Tripet, and P. Nonacs.  2000.  The red and the black: habituation and the dear-enemy phenomenon in two desert Pheidole ants.  Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 48:285-292.
     Mabelis, A.A.  1984.  Interference between wood ants and other ant species (Hymenoptera, Formicidae).  Netherlands Journal of Zoology 34(1):1-20.