Uniqueness - Issue #84

Hello Explorer,
Two weeks ago a friend of ours, sent me a photo of an ant, asking if I knew what species it was. The reason for this is that she experienced the sting of the ant and wondered what species it was. This is often the starting point for an ID request.
Our friend managed to collect a few of the ants so that I could identify them. I took a bunch of photos to ID the ants from, and I kept the specimens in case there was something I needed to see that I didn’t take a photo of.
Using Fisher & Bolton’s key to genera in their book, Ants of Africa and Madagascar, I identified the ant to be in the genus Brachyponera, and since there is only one species of the genus present in the region, the species must be Brachyponera sennaarensis. It is commonly known as the Samsun ant in Arabia, likely because they know how painful the sting is that these ants deliver.
This is the first time I have encountered this ant species, so I had to go read up about the species to understand what this species life history is. It is by doing the reading that I learned that they are very cool.
Being in the sub-family Ponerinae, they do not have a social stomach, which means they don’t have crops in which they store food to share with colony mates. This means that they cannot eat liquid food and then feed other ants through trophalaxis (mouth to mouth feeding). Some species such as Odontomachus can carry droplets of water, honeydew, or honey between their jaws to the nest and then deposit it there for others to eat, but they do not ingest the food themselves before sharing it, as in species with a social stomach. Most Ponerinae species are hunters or scavengers (making them almost exclusively carnivorous), but most will eat some liquid food as well.
The uniqueness of Brachyponera sennaarensis is that they are the only species in the entire Ponerinae sub-family that collect and feed on grass seeds alongside their predatory nature. Their diet changes with location and season. In tropical regions the ants will collect and feed on seeds and insects throughout the dry season, and then in the wet season they will almost exclusively consume seeds. In dry tropical regions, such as here in Tzaneen they will react to the absence of seeds during the dry season (winter) and be on a purely predatory diet, returning to their seed and predatory diet once the wet season starts.
These ants truly show that there are always exceptions to the rules. Have you encountered a species like this that is completely unique amongst its family members? Have you experienced any painful insect (specifically ant) stings before? If you did how did it happen?
Would you like to get a glimpse into the identification process (using keys, characteristics, behaviour, etc.)?

If you would like to send me a message with your answers, feel free to do so on Instagram @abugmanslife or via email to [email protected].