Myrmecophilus pergandei
If you look closely when opening large ant nests in the northern hemisphere temperate zone, there is a good chance you’ll see ant crickets. These flattened, wingless insects are kleptoparasites living among ant colonies, stealing food and tricking the ants into feeding them.
Ant cricket in a nest of odorous house ants
The common species where we live in the midwest is the eastern ant cricket Myrmecophilus pergandei. Larger nests of Tapinoma sessile in our yard often have a few of these running about, so this morning I borrowed one for a twenty minute studio session. They’re odd looking animals, but then, they have an odd lifestyle.
For the rest of the photos, click here.
sources:
MacGown, J.A, Hill, J.G. 2006. The Eastern Ant Cricket, Myrmecophilus Pergandei Bruner (Orthoptera: Myrmecophilidae), Reported From Mississippi, U. S. A. Journal of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences 51: 180-182.
photo details:
Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon 7D
ISO 200, f/13, 1/250 sec
diffuse flash
A personal blog by Illinois-based biologist and photographer Alex Wild.
Awesome!
Great pictures! I have never taken the time to look at these under magnification – they usually prune up when I mount them. These are some cool little orthopterans.
Living off of ant barf isn’t that weird, is it?
Right?
“Living off of ant barf isn’t that weird, is it?”
I’m trying to cut back, myself.
Boy o boy, that was a knee-slapper! Whoo.
Very odd looking creatures indeed! Are they parasites on ants of only certain species/genera or are they more general in their preferences?
This species is real generalist, Conor. I’ve seen them with a wide variety of ants in several subfamilies.
They look rather roach, or even marine isopod (sea roach) like – at least in face-on view.
Factoids:
- Males are very rare or unknown for some species.
- A western species has even been found up in giat sequoias, presumably living up there with carpenter ants.
- The center of diversity for this genus is the Asian Tropics, where some are arboreal, and some may be more specialized in host preference. M. flavocinctus is an Asian one that I’ve encountered once, in Florida, with the also introduced Paratrechina longicornis. W.M.Wheeler mentions this association in his classic 1910 book “Ants”.
Giant sequoias, that is.
And oh yeah, Alex, awesome photos. I’ve gotten a few okay ones, but never like these beauties.
Awesome… thanks for another peak into something thats not just commonly noticed…..
Perfectly adorable! I want one as a plushie!
Any idea why they seem to have such well developed hind legs, they cant be doing much jumping around inside the tunnels of ant nests…?
I just encountered these for the first time a few weeks ago. I took a bunch of photos and was getting ready to blog about them and then you went and scooped me!
They’re pretty charming little animals! Do you know what species they were nesting with?
Same as yours, Tapinoma sessile. See for yourself [he says boldly, while crossing his fingers that he didn't misidentify them].
http://naturecloseups.com/posts/tapinoma-ant-observations