Ant Book 3

1. New Ants, finding ants

2. More new ants

3. AntBook News: quotes, prices, dates

4. Drawing ants

5. Photographers: iSpotters on board

6. Chains-of-ants: a YouTube

1. New Ants, finding ants

The ink was hardly dry on Blog #2 when the remarkable (redoubtable?) Flippie proceeded to post eight more ants-on-iSpot in the two weeks before leaving for the UK. In fact he found a new ant, photographed it and posted it on iSpot on the last the day before he flew out for 6 months with his family – that’s devotion for you!
What’s more, no less than five of the ants that Flippie posted between July 29th and August 13th were species new to iSpot and hence the AntBook. Well, nearly new. One, Camponotus bertolonii (Brown sugar ant), we thought we had – but Flippie’s new post turned out to be the correct species, while one we had earlier misidentified as this species was in fact the much less common C. bianconii (Bianconii’s sugar ant). 

Camponotus bertolinii: pic by Philip Herbst

This was quite pleasing, as C. bianconii is apparently a Cape Peninsula endemic that, uniquely amongst our local Camponotus, nests under the loose bark of dead trees where it constructs ‘carton’ nests of vegetable fibres that are remarkably similar in consistency (but not external appearance) to the nests of various Crematogaster (cocktail ant) species.

Camponotus bianconii in its carton nest (Silvermine, TMNP)

Flippie also found and photographed, from his own Welgemoed garden, the rare, tiny Plagiolepis puncta (Stippled restless ant), Tetramorium erectum (Erect-spined fierce ant), Tetramorium pusillum (Tiny fierce ant)  and a rep from whole new genus, Hypoponera eduardi (Eduard’s crypt ant).

The tiny [>2mm] Plagiolepis puncta [Stippled restless ant]: 
pic by Philip Herbst

Hyponera is a genus of the Ponerine or Ringbum ants; the American myrmecologist John T. Longino wrote (as I have quoted him in the book), “The genus Hypoponera usually triggers avoidance behavior in myrmecologists. Phil Ward has described them as ‘remarkably featureless’ ... the genus is monotonously uniform in habitus, and it is a boring habitus. If Ponerinae is a Mr. Potato Head game, Hypoponera is the potato. So why bother? Because Hypoponera are relatively common ants, and they are an important element in biodiversity surveys involving ants ... in mature forest areas they segregate by vertical microhabitat, some preferring the forest floor, others living in the soil that accumulates beneath epiphyte mats high in the canopy. Others prefer open or highly disturbed habitats. These are often ‘tramp’ species spread widely by human commerce.”
Indeed, Hyponera eduardi is a tramp species that originates from the Mediterranean region and so is technically an invader – but so uncommon and secretive that it’s hardly a problem.

Hyponera eduardi [pic by Philip Herbst] – perhaps we should rename it the Potato ant

2. More new ants

Ricky Taylor (Camponotus olivieri – Olivier’s sugar ant), Robert Taylor (Tetramorium glabratum – Red feigning fierce ant) and Magda Botha (Crematogaster delagoensis – Delagoa cocktail ant) have all found and posted ‘new’ ants since the previous AntBook blog, great additions to the number of photographed species in the book. 

Olivier’s sugar ant [pic: Ricky Taylor] differs from the Bristle-back sugar ant [below]
in having no glabrous stripe down the middle of the gaster. It is also smaller ...

Lynette Rudman also generously sent me a whole portfolio of her great photos of various species, most of which I am still sorting, but which included pics of the magnificent Bristle-back sugar ant (Camponotus postoculatus) from her Grahamstown garden: another new species for the book.

The Bristle-back sugar ant (Camponotus postoculatus): Lynette Rudman’s
great pic depicts ants from different nests having a disagreement –
note the antenna [ant left] in the mandibles [ant right]

3. AntBook News: quotes, prices, dates

‘Bad news’ first: I have no publication date for the book yet. I still make my living out of Slingsby Maps and from time to time I have to close my Ant Book files (with great reluctance) and get on with some mapping: so September so far has been mostly mapping. I am halfway through the Ponerinae with relatively few pages of the book unfinished (about 30 of 240), but a book is like a building: once the roof goes on and the windows are in the building looks complete, but the finishing is the slowest part of all; so to with a book. There is an index to compile, proofreading to be done, final tweaks all around – not to mention the printing and binding, which needs at least a month. Hence I have pretty much abandoned thoughts of a Christmas edition, and am looking at Jan/Feb 2017 instead. Let’s just play safe and say Easter 2017!
The Good News is that we have printers’ quotes, some of which are better than expected, so we are looking at a 240-page full-colour A5 field guide retailing for around R240– R260 (or you can buy a novel printed in black only, on cheap paper, for around R350!!) – which I think is a fair price. I am also going to make a discounted deal available to all who have contributed to the book and/or subscribe to this blog, and I’m hoping to throw in a discounted 60x mini-microscope as well.

4. Drawing ants

One of the things holding up publication of the book is the need to draw several ants, where photographs are not available. I made a ‘policy decision’ at the beginning of the process not to use photos of dead ants in this book; these are freely available on the internet from sites such as AntWeb. If no photos of living specimens are available I felt it would be better to provide good sketches that attempt to show the salient features of the species. So I have ended up with, for example, 18 Tetramorium to draw. These are all species common enough to justify inclusion in the book, but I have no access to photos of living specimens. Future editions might have such photos but in the meantime I’m busy evolving ways of ‘mass producing’ sketches that, while perhaps not fully technically detailed, at least show the characteristics that enable identification. A bit challenging ... but here are some Tetramorium-in-the-making; maybe in the next blog I’ll have the final result!

5. Photographers: iSpotters on board

Please! If I have left you out, my humble apologies – and please let me know asap!

Alex Dreyer, Alexander Rebelo, Andrew Deacon, Andrew Hankey, Betsie Milne, Brian du Preez, Caroline Voget, Charl Strydom, Charles Stirton, Chris Browne, Christine Sydes, Colin Ralston, Detlef Schnabel, Duncan Butchart, Eugene Marinus, Guido Lamberty, Irene Vermeulen, James McCulloch, Jeffrey Groenewald, Johan Pretorius, Joseph Heymans, Kate Braun, Lara Wootton, Lee Jones, Liz Popich, Ludwig Eksteen, Lynette Rudman, Magda Botha, Marian Oliver, Marion Maclean, Mostert Kriek, Nicola van Berkel, Peter Webb, Philip Herbst, Riana & Mike Bate, Richard Adcock, Ricky Taylor, Robert Taylor, Ryan van Huyssteen, Sally Adam, Scott Ramsay, Sue Marsden, Tim van Niekerk, Tony Rebelo, Will van Niekerk, Wynand Uys

6. Chains-of-ants: a YouTube clip

Have a look at this YouTube – get past the not-for-the-squeamish demise of the wriggly millipede to the extraordinary ‘chains’ formed by these Leptogenys ants. I’ve never observed anything like this in any Southern African ants ...

Click HERE to start the video, then click on the forward arrow, bottom left ...

I hope you’ve enjoyed this third blog post. I will post new info from time to time, and keep you up to speed on the book’s progress.

All the best

Peter Slingsby