Leaf Cutting Ant Forum

Did the fighting result in dead ants?

I can remember removing some dead ants and clusters of ants attached to each other, biting onto legs and antennae.

Fascinating but without more detail its impossible to tell what was likely at fault.

Unfortunately it is a few years ago now - good reason for keeping a journal !

Have you ever come across ants fighting within the same colony ?

Kev

The only reason I can think of for ants to fight in the same colony is if they, for some reason, identify a group of ants as foreign. This could happen if the hydrocarbons on their exoskeleton, which others use to identify them, were masked by other odours. Possibly a food source or chemical they have come in contact with has disguised their true identity. Not sure though without more info.

This is interesting Andrew. I remember how on occasion, our old Acro colony members would sometimes fall into the water around their nest and I would pick them out of it. Sometimes, the soggy ones would be attacked, and sometimes they would be stroked as if being checked to see if they were OK... or if I had had them out in their pot while I cleaned out the dump tank for a while, some of them would be hammered by the others when I put them back. Yet on other occasions when they fell into the water and I didn't need to rescue them, other ants would flock to the side of the nest tank to the one in the water and seem to reach out to them, as if trying to help...they never liked being cleaned out though, the protest squeaking was very audible!

Theres a lot of work to be done on Nest mate recognition. I am currently getting lots of mixed signals about what to believe regarding cues for identification. Got some things cooking though.......