Pheidole megacephala
| Pheidole megacephala | |
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| Dorsal view of worker big-headed ant | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Formicidae |
| Subfamily: | Myrmicinae |
| Genus: | Pheidole |
| Species: | P. megacephala |
| Binomial name | |
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Pheidole megacephala Fabricius, 1793 |
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| Synonyms | |
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Atta testacea Smith 1858 |
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Atta testacea Smith 1858
Formica edax Forskal 1775
Myrmica laevigata F. Smith
Myrmica suspiciosa Smith 1859
Myrmica trinodis Losana 1834
Oecophthora perniciosa Gerstacker 1859
Oecophthora pusilla Heer 1852
Pheidole janus F. Smith
Pheidole laevigata Mayr
Pheidole megacephala is a species of ant in the family Formicidae. It is commonly known as the big-headed ant in the USA and the coastal brown ant in Australia. It is a very successful invasive species and is considered a danger to native ants in Australia and other places. It has been nominated as one of the hundred "World's worst" invaders.
Pheidole megacephala was described from a specimen from the island of Mauritius by the entomologist Johan Christian Fabricius in 1793, although a 1775 record exists for Egypt, under the name Formica edax. Regardless of its origin, big-headed ants have since spread to many tropical and subtropical parts of the world.
There are two types of worker ant, the major or soldier ant and the minor worker. The common name of bigheaded ant derives from the soldier's disproportionately large head. This has large mandibles which may be used to crush seeds. The soldiers are about four millimetres in length, twice as long as the minor workers. The colour of both types varies from yellowish-brown or reddish-brown to nearly black. The rear half of the head is smooth and glossy and the front half sculptured. The twelve-segmented antennae are curved and have club-like tips. The waist or petiole is two-segmented with the node immediately behind conspicuously swollen. There are a pair of short, upward-facing spines on the waist. The body has sparse, long hairs.
Bigheaded ants nest in colonies underground. Colonies can have several queens and super-colonies can be formed by budding, when a queen and workers leave the original nest and set up a new colony nearby without swarming. In Florida, nuptial flights of winged ants take place during the winter and spring and afterwards, fertilized queens shed their wings and find a suitable site to found a new colony where they start laying eggs. Each queen lays up to 290 eggs per month. The eggs hatch after two to four weeks and the legless white larvae, which are fed by the workers, pupate about a month later. The adult workers emerge ten to twenty days after that.
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Wikipedia