Honeypot ant

Honey pot ants and honey ants are so named because the corresponding species have a caste, which stores the food that is brought to them by workers and fed into their gaster. These ants are sitting motionless on the ceiling of ants building. Your intumescent goiter inflates the abdomen to barrel-shaped, so that they look like honey pots. In this way, honey is collected each construction in 500 live honey pots up to 250 grams. If necessary, for example, shortage of fodder in the dry season, the stored food is released again and the ants capable of movement. Most species live in arid habitats and feed on honey-like secretions of the dwarf oak galls or honeydew from aphids.

The term " honeypot ants " does not refer to a specific species of ant, but is a generic term.

Examples:

• Myrmecocystus spec. in North America. In a nest of Myrmecocystus Melliger more than 1,500 pots of honey were counted.
• Camponotus inflatus
• Some types of Leptomyrmex in Australia, New Caledonia and New Guinea
• Plagiolepis trimeni in KwaZulu -Natal
• Melophorus bagoti and Melophorus cowlei in the Australian deserts.

Intermediate forms occur in the genera Erebomyrma, Pheidologeton, Prenolepis, Proformica and Oligomyrmex.

If honey pot ants is mentioned, but those are usually meant to be consumed by the Aboriginal people, the Aborigines. Particularly preferably, the ant species Camponotus inflatus is because this has the sweetest honey.

Source

• Hölldobler & Wilson: The Ants. Springer (1990 ) ISBN 3-540-52092-9

• Ants