Oecophylla ants

09 Nov 2024 14:29:24 pm

Tags : Oecophylla ants

Topic: Biodiversity

Why in the news?

A recent study from the Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), has found that Oecophylla ants may be pushing montane birds higher up the mountains.
According to the IISc, in mountainous regions, species diversity can vary with elevation due to environmental factors like climatic conditions. However, the study by the CES team, has uncovered a different factor driving bird species diversity at mid-elevations i.e. the presence of ants from the Oecophylla genus.

Source: The Hindu

About Oecophylla ants:

These are also known as weaver ants or green ants.
They live in trees and are known for their unique nest building behaviour where workers construct nests by weaving together leaves using larval silk.
- Colonies can be extremely large consisting of more than a hundred nests spanning numerous trees and containing more than half a million workers.
Like many other ant species, weaver ants prey on small insects and supplement their diet with carbohydrate-rich honeydew excreted by scale insects.
The ant workers exhibit a clear bimodal size distribution, with almost no overlap between the size of the minor and major workers.
- Major workers forage, defend, maintain, and expand the colony whereas minor workers tend to stay within the nests where they care for the brood and \'milk\' scale insects in or close to the nests.
They vary in color from reddish to yellowish brown depending on the species.
They are highly territorial and workers aggressively defend their territories against intruders.
Because they prey on insects harmful to their host trees, they are sometimes used by indigenous farmers, particularly in southeast Asia, as natural biocontrol agents against agricultural pests.
Although they lack a functional sting, they can inflict painful bites and often spray formic acid directly at the bite wound resulting in intense discomfort.