Bamboo Ant

Camponotus Mirabilis

Camponotus Mirabilis
  • © Nick Volpe - some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) - Source: iNaturalist
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    • Color: Dark brown, red
    • Worker size: -
    • Colony size: -
    • Queen: polydomous, has alates

    Introduction

    Bamboo ants are some of the most unique ants in the world! They have dark brown heads and abdomens. Their thorax is red, and their bodies are thin and elongated, even the head! They are specifically adapted to nest in bamboo, and that’s how they fill in their ecological niche. They’re polydomous, and one colony could inhabit many bamboo stalks.

    Unique Traits

    Bamboo Inhabitants

    These ants inhabit the Guadua Bamboo, a type of bamboo they are specialized to live in. The bamboo is composed of stories of carton shelves, and brood can nest inside these structures. They nest in areas called “clums”, which are basically the space inside grasses that the ants love to run around in. The ants nesting inside the bamboo let the bamboo get rid of the water trapped inside the culm, passively. This nesting habit also encourages Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus Apella) to open the bamboo stalk they are nested in for food, as they try to find the reproductive castes of the colony. As a result of the frequent disturbances from the primates, the bamboo stalks tend to fall down, resulting in the ants abandoning their nest in search of a new one.

    Defences

    These ants spill aggressively from bamboo stalks if they are disturbed. They use formic acid stings to defend themselves, like all members of the sub-family formicinae.

    Habitat & Diet

    These ants are native to the Brazilian states of Acre and Roraima, as well as Peru and Bolivia. Their larvae eat the honeydew of coccids (Cryptostigma guadua) that feed on the bamboo. The honeydew they get from the coccids is a major source of food. During the night, they gather their prey. They hunt down arthropods to take back into the nest. They hunt in the leaf litter a lot.

    Sources:

    Written by: Eric Qian