Safari ant
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Safari ants are a type of driver or army ant living in central and east Africa, of the genus Dorylus and the family Formicidae and the order Hymenoptera. Unlike most colonial hymenopterans with three classes, safari ants have four. To the normal queen, workers, and males (or drones) is added a soldier class, which is larger, with a very large head and pincer-like mandibles.
Commonly believed to not form anthills, they actually do, and each colony can contain up to 20 million individuals. Seasonally, when food supplies become short, they leave the hill and form marching columns which are considered a menace to humans. Their bite is severely painful, each soldier leaving two puncture wounds when removed. Removal is difficult, however as they hang on like a pit bull, and one can pull a soldier ant in two without it releasing its hold. Large numbers of ants can kill small or immobilized animals and eat the flesh. A large part of their diet is earthworms.
In mating season alates (winged queens and drones) are formed. The drones are larger than the soldiers and the queens are much larger. They mate on wing, and the queens go off to establish new colonies. Workers and soldiers are sexually undeveloped (or non-reproducing) females.
Safari ants are a favorite food of chimpanzees and gorillas. Chimps have learned how to catch and consume them without being bit much. They poke a stick into the anthill, to get some ants on the stick. Then they quickly swipe the ants from the stick by hand and pop them into their mouths where they are also quickly crushed. This use of a tool by chimps has been studied extensively in recent time, as it was previously thought that tool use was strictly a human province.
Once the Safari Ant bites they will never release, even after the ant's body is severed from the head. In East Africa they are used as natural, emergency stitches. Maasai moroni, when they suffer a gash in the bush, will use the soldiers to stitch the wound, by getting the ants to bite both sides of the gash together binding it closed, then breaking off the body. This seal can hold for days, evidence of the amazingly strong grip of the Safari Ant.
Species
- D. zimmermanni (Santschi)
- D. kohli (Wasmann),
- D. lamottei (Bernard)
- D. wilverthi (Emery)
- D. nigricans (Illiger)
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