North Queenslanders know green-ants very well. Their nests of woven leaves are common in our trees, and we learn to be cautious about pushing through shrubbery because the workers drop on intruders and bite quite painfully. But there is one stage of the life cycle we rarely see: the winged queen.
Winged queen green-ant
Unmated queens-to-be fly from existing colonies in the wet season and, if they are lucky, mate with winged males released at the same time and then establish their own new colonies.
We visited Magnetic Island yesterday and saw dozens of the winged queens. They looked like wasps but were clumsy fliers, often crash-landing into plants or people, and in spite of their powerful jaws they were not at all aggressive.
Another, sitting on my finger
The queen, like all flying ants, soon loses her wings. She will find a likely spot for a nest, and start laying eggs, and her children/workers will build the nest around her.
More pics: Worker and Nest construction on Flickr.
All you ever wanted to know about Green-ants: A masterpiece of evolution – Oecophylla weaver ants by Ross H. CROZIER†, Philip S. NEWEY, Ellen A. SCHLÜNS & Simon K.A. ROBSON, Myrmecological News, 13, 57-71, Vienna, April 2010 (pdf)
I have just found large clumps of these queen ants on my lemon tree, there were some on outer branches with wings as you have described. Others are all clumped together in protected curled up leaves not moving much. The winged ones seemed to be walking along the branches, I thought maybe eating white fly.
They have been there for 48 hours and most unusual, as I though there was only 1 queen to a nest, no a whole bunch of queens. Yet this is the identical ant.
I googled in case it was an overseas unwelcome visitor, I havnt seen them before.
Watched one this morning as he curled up and preened his bottom. hmm unusual ant behaviour.
My home is in the suburbs of Darwin.
Hi, Colleen,
Thanks for reporting this. I haven’t been able to observe this behaviour but I’m sure you’re right about the species.
Green ants do form colonies with multiple queens, but not *lots* of queens (maybe 3 – 7, I can’t quite remember what I have read). It’s possible that unmated queens are simply hanging around together until they die – the winged queens emerge in huge numbers and I don’t know what happens to the unsuccessful ones. Do let us know what happens next.