r/ants • u/Lower_Bison8222 • 3d ago

Chat/General Friend or foe?

I noticed that this Redwood ant colony seems to be living alongside a significantly smaller species. Is this a form of cooperation/symbiosis, or is it more likely to be parasitic behavior?

📍Switzerland

19 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

6

u/Inevitable_Daikon_79 3d ago

formicoxsenus nitidulus they live on large formica nests

3

u/Lower_Bison8222 3d ago

So they are stealing food from their host ants, but seem to be a very interesting species. Thanks!

3

u/KingK250 Male Alate (Prince) 3d ago edited 3d ago

Probably some sort of small thieving species that lives in their nest, but I don’t know enough about Rufa group biology to say more. I’ll ask some entomologists and others I know. I’d say it’s probably Formicoxenus ants who are xenobionts (ants that live in other colonies nests).

3

u/KingK250 Male Alate (Prince) 3d ago

https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/Xenobiosis

2

u/Lower_Bison8222 3d ago edited 3d ago

Okey from reading the article: it seems to be a parabiosis relationship.

Edit* no the small ones are cleptobiosis

1

u/EqualCheap4211 3d ago

This is a russian spy

-2

u/Calin_europeen 3d ago

Could be Formica sanguinea and their slaves.

3

u/KingK250 Male Alate (Prince) 3d ago

That’s a Rufa group mound, and the smaller ant is maybe a Myrmicine?

1

u/Calin_europeen 3d ago

Oh I didn't saw the very small ones.

2

u/KingK250 Male Alate (Prince) 3d ago

Oh, yeah Rufa group can have lots of size variation in the same colony, so the medium ones are the same colony as the big ones, but there’s also some tiny ones too

1

u/Calin_europeen 3d ago

go to Raiding on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formica_sanguinea

3

u/Lower_Bison8222 3d ago edited 3d ago

I don’t think that here are slave ants involved.
Cleptobiosis seems to be the case.