I’ve always been interested in polymorphic ants, whether it was the mass raiding Carebara diversa and its ilk in the Philippines, or the weird top heavy Acanthomyrmex species in the tropics. So an attraction to the mostly dimorphic Pheidole genus would have been natural.
I remember when I was still a teen in the Philippines, and reading in the college library about the rapacious Pheidole megacephala, as it devastated native populations of Odontomachus in those islands that it had invaded. This was one of the factors that caused me to sally forth to far-off parks to observe interesting ant species. Most times, I took a series of buses and jeepneys for three hours to get to the Mt. Makiling Botanical Garden in Los Banos, skipping my college classes in search of more exciting adventures. It was in these parks that I got to first meet awesome polymorphic ants like Carebara diversa, as well as the smaller ants like Pheidole.
Fast forward to when I was a student at USC in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. Linepithema humile was everywhere, with a good sprinkling of Solenopsis fire ants around as well (I don’t believe it was S. invicta, as that did not arrive until the late 1990s). But in the midst of these ants, I found small colonies of a Pheidole sp on the USC campus itself, which I treasured and tended to, giving them small bits of food and wishing them well. I always figured it was a precarious existence for these tiny ants, especially when surrounded by such fearsome invaders.
In college, I also frequented the library, and one of the journals I read was Psyche: A Journal of Entomology. In this wonderful journal I came upon two of the coolest ant species ever. Both were Pheidole, and reading about them stoked my interest in the genus like never before. The first species was Phedole ridicula (now P. absurda), and the article was The Habits of Pheidole Ridicula Wheeler, With Remarks on Habit Patterns in the Genus Pheidole. This study dealt mainly with the amazing major of this species and its efficacy in defending the nest. The second article was also authored by Creighton, and called The Habits of Pheidole Militicida Wheeler. It also elaborated on the defensive function of the major of the equally fascinating Pheidole militicida.
But notwithstanding my interest in these Pheidole species, my main love for the next few years were for the Atta leafcutter ants. These species are strongly polymorphic, with incredibly large and fearsome major workers, and I even took trips to places like Texas specifically to search for them. I had a particularly strong liking for species that had huge shiny-headed soldiers, like the Atta mexicana that I found in Mexico.
By 2017 I had started a site dedicated to the invasive Pheidole megacephala, and during trips to tropical regions I would invariably spend some hours surveying the area for this species. While my wife and our friends went off on shore excursions, I would be busy trudging along the touristy streets and byways, my eyes glued to the ground and scanning ceaselessly for the 2 mm long minor workers.
In a way, it was almost natural that I ultimately expanded the scope of my interest to the entire genus Pheidole, after my obsession with P. megacephala. Now I am not limited to studying just one species, albeit a species that is so fascinating, but learning about the evolution and lifestyles of the most diverse ant genus in the world. It’ll be a fun adventure.
Literature Cited
Sunjian, A (2018). A survey of ants in Old Town Key West in Florida and a review of Pheidole megacephala as an archetypal “hegemonic” species. The Pm Compendium (PMC).
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