7 replies to this topic

[silver tail]

Usually queen will beb covered by all the worker ants...it's a rare sightb of Weaver ants queen...

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[LC3]

Interesting. I'm use to seeing the green weaver ant queens in pictures these queens are just as cool as their green counterparts.

[silver tail]

The green ones are the young queen. When they are older they turn black

[LC3]

I thought Oecophylla loginoda has red/orange queens since the species is redish while Oecophylla smaragdina has green/yellow queens since the species is orange and green.

[laowai]

Oecophylla smaragdina is probably erroneously describing both the Asian and Australian types. Realistically the Australian form should be re-classified as it is uniquely different to the rest of the types found in Asia.

 

Oecophylla loginoda is native to sub-saharan Africa, and is similar in colouring to the Asian type.

 

Generally the workers show a difference depending on where they come from; the African type is a more brownish colour, while the Asian type is more a red colour, and the Australian type has a green abdomen. 

 

Also it is impossible to distinguish between the different species by looking at the Queens alone, as either the Asian, African or Australian types, can all be found in quite a large array of colours ranging from browns to greens.

 

For example, these are two Queens of the Asian Malaysian type, yet they range in colour from brown to green. As you can see this large variety in colour is probably done intentionally; allowing Queens to camouflage on a larger variety of leaf types, therefore increasing the possibility the will successfully evade predation. 

 

 

 

Yes Queens seem to change colour as they age, probably because they no longer need to blend in to the surrounding vegetation to survive. 

 

Great photo by the way.

Edited by laowai, September 21 2015 - 4:32 AM.

[dspdrew]

Sounds like that was filmed in a jungle.

[silver tail]

The 2 in the video are the queen to be

[sgheaton]

Here's an Ant Canada Video of a Green Weaver Ant -