Odontomachus coquereli

Madagascar
Odontomachus cephalotes

Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia
An Odontomachus bauri worker has captured an earthworm and is carrying it home.

Gamboa, Panama
Odontomachus bauri trap-jaw ants showing some of the different mandible positions.

La Selva, Heredia, Costa Rica
Odontomachus bauri.  Trap-jaw ants are normally thought of as predators, but they also tend honeydew-producing insects.

Gamboa, Panama
Odontomachus bauri with a young cricket it has caught.

La Selva, Heredia, Costa Rica
Odontomachus bauri. With peak velocities over 50 meters per second, the mandibles of this species have among the fastest recorded movements in the biological world

La Selva, Heredia, Costa Rica
Odontomachus bauri. Millisecnds ahead of a mandible strike, a tropical trap-jaw ant closes in on its cricket prey.

La Selva, Heredia, Costa Rica
Odontomachus bauri with a young cricket it has caught.

La Selva, Heredia, Costa Rica
Odontomachus coquereli

Madagascar
Odontomachus coquereli

Madagascar
Odontomachus coquereli

Madagascar
See photo in original gallery.
all images and text © Alex Wild 2001-2013