Many Pheidole species are granivores. Here, a minor worker transports a grass seed back to her nest.

Diamond Creek, Victoria, Australia
Many Pheidole species are granivores. Here, a minor worker transports a grass seed back to her nest.

Diamond Creek, Victoria, Australia
Pogonomyrmex barbatus alate queen.

Sycamore Canyon, Arizona, USA
Pogonomyrmex barbatus alate queen.

Sycamore Canyon, Arizona, USA
A young queen harvester ant (Aphaenogaster albisetosa) emerges from the nest on the morning of her mating flight.

Green Valley, Arizona, USA
Aphaenogaster cockerelli alate queen.

Laboratory colony at Arizona State University
Aphaenogaster cockerelli harvester ant worker.

Laboratory colony at Arizona State University
Nests of the seed-harvesting ant Aphaenogaster albisetosa are large and conspicuous.

Green Valley, Arizona, USA
One of the strangest recorded ant phenomena is a hybrid zone between two species of harvester ants in the western United States.  Pogonomyrmex rugosus and Pogonomyrmex barbatus apparently hybridized in the ancient past, leading to a pair of genetically complex daughter lineages that continually need to cross with each other in order to make worker ants. The queens and males remain genetically separate.  Young queens need to mate with their own species to produce more queens and males, and with the other species to produce workers. 

This image shows a hybrid worker leaving the nest.

Portal, Arizona, USA
A young queen harvester ant (Aphaenogaster albisetosa) emerges from the nest on the morning of her mating flight.

Green Valley, Arizona, USA
A young queen harvester ant (Aphaenogaster albisetosa) emerges from the nest on the morning of her mating flight.

Green Valley, Arizona, USA
A young queen harvester ant (Aphaenogaster albisetosa) emerges from the nest on the morning of her mating flight.

Green Valley, Arizona, USA
See photo in original gallery.
all images and text © Alex Wild 2001-2013