I captured a interesting looking ant a few weeks back, turns out to be a Dolichoderus clarki
It has large gold heart shapped gaster like a Crematogaster, with metallic Rhytidoponera colours in the upper body!
About 9mm in length
click to enlarge
I came across their nest - it was like 2 feet away from where I found this ant, on the side of the track.
It's like an open bird nest pretty much, with workers holding the larvae to get warmth from the sun.
Looked to be about a few hundred strong, so pretty big colony for the size of the ants
So humidity requirements are low, and they like the sun to hit them 
I'll be stalking this nest for possible queens 
On the flip side, I think the queens may be wingless... 
Found another nest of these about 100m away from the one I saw above.
Right besides the trail, where I've walked tons of times, and never noticed them till today!
Due to the distance... maybe the queens fly...?
I found the nest by following a trail of foragers.
And it's big, like a bird nest once again sitting on some loose debris, but this one is covered.
There must be at least a 1000 ants, with a loose trail down to a cracked plastic drainage pipe, that probably has water inside from the recent rain.
I haven't seen a Polyrhachis nest this big in the area, and these are only 1mm shorter than a Polyrhachis ammon, so it's safe to say this is a fast growing species, despite being fairly big ants.
Also pretty docile. You can tap them on the head and they don't go ballistic, or bite you 
Edited by CoolColJ, September 23 2018 - 5:16 PM.
