{"id":312,"date":"2024-06-02T11:27:37","date_gmt":"2024-06-02T15:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/?p=312"},"modified":"2026-05-18T13:17:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:17:28","slug":"a-morning-scrimmage-pheidole-megacephala-vs-solenopsis-invicta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/2024\/06\/02\/a-morning-scrimmage-pheidole-megacephala-vs-solenopsis-invicta\/","title":{"rendered":"A Morning Scrimmage: Pheidole megacephala vs Solenopsis invicta"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Pheidole\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Pheidole megacephala<\/em> major bisects Solenopsis invita<\/em> worker while P. megacephala<\/em> minors hold it down<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Note: apologies for the images. The location was poorly lit, and the ground was wet and and dark – overall a bad time to be taking pics, and especially of tiny ants.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been busy mapping the boundaries of a small Pheidole megacephala<\/em> cluster by baiting workers out of peripheral nodes of the “super-colony” using cookie bits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one node that was located at the base of a tree along a walkway, I returned after 30 minutes one early morning to find that a frenetic battle was taking place close to the nest hole of the P. megacephala<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Pheidole\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Pheidole megacephala<\/em> soldiers rush to the scene<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The attraction of Pheidole megacephala<\/em> to cookie baits varies, and there are times when the bait is left alone for long periods of time, and so a scout from a Solenopsis invicta<\/em> fire ant colony probably happened upon a bit of cookie, and had recruited a line of other fire ants to the bait.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Normally, faced with an onrushing column of S. invicta<\/em> fire ants, many other ant species would probably withdraw, but in this case the Pheidole ants engaged the intruders. Although the node was at the very periphery of the P. megacephala<\/em> cluster and thus likely underpopulated, I could see that there were perhaps 20 or so major workers rushing around helping to dispatch the intruders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Large\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Pheidole megacephala<\/em> soldiers disable fire ant intruder during a latter melee.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There were fire ants immobilized throughout the bait location, their stretched bodies ringed by Pheidole<\/em> minor and major workers. There were also ants engaged in single combat. In one case, a fire ant tried to sting a Pheidole megacephala<\/em> soldier, which had pulled it up and was trying to cut its opponent in two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Pheidole\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Pheidole megacephala<\/em> soldier engages a fire ant in single combat, while another major rushes in.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Pheidole<\/em> majors seemed to be quite adept at cutting the fire ants into pieces. Fire ant limbs, abdomens and limbless torsos were in evidence, and in one case one fire ant had its head severed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Headless body of fire ant surrounded by soldiers. The severed limbs of the unfortunate ant is in the right foreground.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In many cases, the intruders were first stretched out by minor workers and rendered helpless. This technique is fairly standard in ants, and I’ve seen it put to good use by various species, including Oecophylla smaragdina<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Pheidole\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Pheidole megacephala<\/em> minor workers stretch out a Solenosis invicta<\/em> intruder.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A soldier sooner or later would wander by and quickly dispatch the luckless fire ant, using its mandibles to bisect the intruder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Pheidole\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Pheidole megacephala<\/em> soldier ready to cut a fire ant in two. It also seems to be missing its limbs. You can see the stinger of the fire ant protruding from the tip of its abdomen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fire ants who have thus been treated usually have severed limbs and abdomens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Fire\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Fire ant with its abdomen gone, the result of a wandering major worker.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Finally, dead fire ants were dragged and taken into the nest by the Pheidole<\/em>, and so I assume they were being treated as prey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Dead\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Dead fire ant (entangled with a minor
Pheidole<\/em> worker) being dragged to the nest.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

During the fracas, major workers ventured far from the bait location, as if in search of any other intruders, so after awhile a cone of looping Pheidole<\/em> cleared the immediate location of fire ants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time I left, the location was bathe in sunlight and the Pheidole<\/em> had withdrawn closer to their nest. The species is prone to desiccation and are usually not in evidence in exposed areas during the heat of the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Pheidole\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Pheidole megacephala<\/em> soldier<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I probably should point out that this is the first time EVER that I have seen P. megacephala<\/em> engage another species in combat. Most times, competitors (other than maybe some of the usual opportunistic species like Brachymyrmex<\/em> spp and Paratrechina longicornis<\/em>) are absent from core areas that they control. In Key West, for example, P. megacephala<\/em> was in a cluster with an area of around 90 ha, and I did not find a single fire ant colony inside that during a 2 day daytime survey of the area, but fire ants were very abundant outside the limits of control (Sunjian, 2018).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Pheidole megacephala<\/em> minor and major workers running around in search of more fire ant intruders.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Literature Cited:<\/strong>

Sunjian, A (2018). A survey of ants in Old Town Key West in Florida and a review of Pheidole megacephala as an archetypal \u201chegemonic\u201d species. The Pm Compendium (PMC). https:\/\/pheidolemegacephala.blogspot.com\/2018\/06\/a-survey-of-ants-in-old-town-key-west.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: apologies for the images. The location was poorly lit, and the ground was wet and and dark – overall a bad time to be taking pics, and especially of tiny ants. I have been busy mapping the boundaries of a small Pheidole megacephala cluster by baiting workers out of peripheral nodes of the “super-colony”…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_siteseo_robots_primary_cat":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,6],"tags":[12,14,17,18],"class_list":["post-312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-macrophotography","category-species-observations","tag-macrophotography","tag-pheidole-megacephala","tag-predation","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":591,"href":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312\/revisions\/591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keyapa.com\/pheidole\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}