I admit to be an ant nut, and will suffer alot of discomfort (bites, stings, etc) to wring the last bit of information out of an interesting encounter with our six legged buddies. On one occasion for example, the large nest of Formica sanguinea attacked a rufa colony in my garden in Kent.
The F. sanguinea carried out a typical raid on this nest and sent a large contingent to attack the nest on the opposite side to their own position. They also sent a very large blockading force and spread these out in the grass in the direct line between them and the F. rufa nest. None of the latter insects attacked the F. rufa so, as far as the defenders were concerned, the F. sanguinea were attacking from the rear only. Clever or what?
All the F. sanguinea in this raid were very large (8 mm and larger), whereas the size of the F. rufa were typically around 6mm with a few individuals up to 9 mm. After about an hour of constant attack, the F. rufa finally broke and the top of the nest 'exploded' with fleeing ants. In other words it went up like a volcano as thousands of rufa blasted leaf litter out of their way in their haste to get clear. The nest literally lost its shape!
Hordes of rufa escaped with pupae, trying to escape the pursuing sanguinea. Most fled straight into the many blockading sanguinea. The rufa lost most of their brood in the raid but the majority of the workers and all of the Queens survived the attack. These vacated the garden and made a home in an older nest.
All the ants involved in the above were bred up from single females captured following the marriage flights. Culturing methods were particularly successful in these cases especially with these two large species. The Formica sanguinea colony remained the same size for many years and a number of daughter queens were adopted during its lifetime. The rufa nest typically split into two when it became a particular size and adopted new females from the neighbourhood which supported natural colonies.
Queens and workers from these colonies have subsequently been used in additional culturing programmes.
Tags: Kent | In the Field | Rufa | Sanguinea
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