Empire Falls

I love ants.

My area was overrun back in 1978 by the Argentine ant species.

Like a tyrannical Empire they devastated the local area and eliminated all other ant species.

The prolific Argentine's, had a massive demise a fews years ago and totally disappeared from a significant part of my suburb.

This has allowed for many other species of ant to return.

Today, moving a pot, I found a beautiful seed collecting species.

They are pretty. Oh, so pretty

This species have a mix of Minor and Major ants.
They also carry no sting.

Even being related they have significant size differences.
The Major worker does all of the heavy lifting and defense work.

Whereas, their Minor worker sisters (as all worker ants are female) do the general tasks of foraging and care giving.

The design of their subterrainean is elegant.

The setup seems like a small cache.

There were no larvae, Royal brood, or a Queen, so this must be a satellite setup away from the main group.

The fact there are a decent number of Majors, tells me that it is quite an established colony.

This is the first time I have encountered this species in my backyard.
We are just in the beginning of a cool start to Spring.

Fortunately, it has not rained yet.
Today, I found that they had already relocated, taking the eggs already, and starting to move the seeds today.

It was a great pleasure to meet them.