What is it about?
Fire ants now figure among the most intensively studied insects. But very few researchers pay any closer look into their larvae. The larvae of several fire ant species (native to Brazil) are inspected in this paper, and illustrated in details. Herein you'll get to see details of their body sculpture, and whether their look different for different species. Contrary to what some other researchers claim, we found no useful differences between the larvae of different fire ant species. Still, they look quite interesting.
Featured Image
Photo by Jens Johnsson on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Fire ant taxonomy and species identification are usually challenging. The ants are exceedingly similar, and some castes are essentially identical. Some researchers (e.g. Pitts et al.) have claimed that the larvae of fire ants can be separated into species based on the morphology of head hairs. Our observations here suggest this is not to be trusted, based on a larger sample size. Studying the morphology of ant larvae can help clarify taxonomic and biological questions.
Perspectives
We intend to dig deeper into the caste-specific morphology of fire ants in further species-specific studies in the future, based on fresh samples and new, cheaper analytical technology.
Dr Eduardo G P Fox
IBCCF / UFRJ
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Comparative Immature Morphology of Brazilian Fire Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae:Solenopsis), Psyche A Journal of Entomology, January 2012, Hindawi Publishing Corporation,
DOI: 10.1155/2012/183284.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Related Discussion: Why Do Ants Die After The Queen Dies?
The appended short discussion is fundamental to understand the sheer importance of larvae and knowledge about immature development in understanding ants biology.
Short conference abstract: Different identification protocols yield incongruous species identification to Brazilian Fire Ants
The short presentation given at ICE South Africa highlights the difficulties faced in identifying fire ants, using different tools.
Short Conference Paper: Head hairs will not differentiate fire ant species [in Portuguese]
A conference paper (in Portuguese) preceding the publication of this manuscript, highlighting on the focal issue of the larval head hairs not being useful for fire ant taxonomy.
Contributors
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