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The name army ant (or legionary ant or "Marabunta") is applied to over 200 known species, in different lineages, together characterized primarily by their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", in which huge numbers of ants all forage simultaneously over a certain area, attacking prey en masse. They also share the habit of not constructing a permanent nest, unlike most ants, and an army ant colony moves almost incessantly over the time it exists. All species are members of the true ant family Formicidae, but there are several groups that have independently evolved the same basic behavioral and ecological syndrome. This syndrome is often referred to as "legionary behavior", and is an example of convergent evolution. Species See article. ...
Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
Subfamilies Formicomorph subfamilies Aneuretinae Dolichoderinae Formicinae - e. ...
In evolutionary biology, convergent evolution is the process whereby organisms not closely related, independently evolve similar traits as a result of having to adapt to similar environments or ecological niches. ...
Usage, circumscription Historically, "army ant" referred, in the broad sense, to various members of 5 different ant subfamilies: in two of these cases, the Ponerinae and Myrmicinae, it is only a few species and genera that exhibit legionary behavior; in the other three lineages, Ecitoninae, Dorylinae, and Leptanillinae, all of the constituent species are legionary. More recently, ant classifications now recognize an additional New World subfamily, Leptanilloidinae, which also consists of obligate legionary species, and thus is another group now included among the army ants. This article is in need of attention. ...
Tribes Basicerotini Dacetini Phalacromyrmecini Cephalotini Attini Blepharidattini Stenammini Solenopsidini Myrmicini Tetramoriini Pheidolini Crematogastrini Meranoplini Formicoxenini Melissotarsini Myrmecinini The Myrmicinae are a subfamily of Ants. ...
Tribes Cheliomyrmecini Dorylini (incl. ...
Tribes Aenictini Aenictogetini Dorylini probably a lot more The Dorylinae is an old-world subfamily of the Formicidae commonly referred to as Driver ants or siafu. ...
A 2003 study of thirty species (by Sean Brady of Cornell University) indicates that the ecitonine and doryline army ants together formed a monophyletic group: all shared identical genetic markers that suggest a common ancestor. Brady concluded that these two groups are therefore a single lineage that evolved in the mid-Cretaceous period in Gondwana[1], and so the two subfamilies are now generally united into a single subfamily Ecitoninae, though this is still not universally recognized (e.g. [2]). Cornell redirects here. ...
In phylogenetics, a group is monophyletic (Greek: of one stem) if all organisms in that group are known to have developed from a common ancestral form, and all descendants of that form are included in the group. ...
For other uses of Gondwana and Gondwanaland, see Gondwana (disambiguation). ...
Tribes Cheliomyrmecini Dorylini (incl. ...
Accordingly, the army ants as presently recognized consist of the following genera:
Subfamily Ponerinae:
Subfamily Myrmicinae: Subfamily Leptanilloidinae: Subfamily Leptanillinae: Subfamily Ecitoninae: Species See article. ...
Species See article. ...
Species Eciton burchellii Eciton drepanophorum Eciton dulcium Eciton hamatum Eciton jansoni Eciton lucanoides Eciton mexicanum Eciton quadrigiume Eciton rapax Eciton setigaster Eciton uncinatum Eciton vagans The New World army ant genus Eciton contains the most familiar species of army ants. ...
Ecitoninae -
- Most New World army ants belong to the subfamily Ecitoninae, and this is the most commonly-known lineage, therefore bears special mention. This subfamily is further broken into two groups, the tribes Cheliomyrmecini and Ecitonini. The former contains only the genus Cheliomyrmex, and the tribe Ecitonini contains four genera, Neivamyrmex, Nomamyrmex, Labidus, and Eciton, the genus after which the group is named (Brady, 2003, Tree of Life). The genus Neivamyrmex is the largest of all army ant genera, containing some 120 species, all in the United States. The most predominant species of Eciton is Eciton burchellii, whose common name is "army ant" and which is considered to be the archetypal species.
- The Old World army ants are divided between the two tribes Aenictini and Dorylini.
- The tribe Aenictini is made up of a single genus, Aenictus, that contains over 50 species of army ant.
- The tribe Dorylini contains the aggressive driver ants in the genus Dorylus. There are some 60 species known.
Army ant taxonomy remains ever-changing, and genetic analysis will continue to provide more information about the relatedness of the various species. Tribes Cheliomyrmecini Dorylini (incl. ...
Frontispiece of Peter Martyr dAnghieras De orbe novo (On the New World). Carte dAmérique, Guillaume Delisle, 1722. ...
Species Eciton burchellii Eciton drepanophorum Eciton dulcium Eciton hamatum Eciton jansoni Eciton lucanoides Eciton mexicanum Eciton quadrigiume Eciton rapax Eciton setigaster Eciton uncinatum Eciton vagans The New World army ant genus Eciton contains the most familiar species of army ants. ...
For other uses, see Old World (disambiguation). ...
Species See article. ...
Species See article. ...
In fiction Carl Stephenson's 1938 short story "Leiningen Versus the Ants" concerns a massive column of army ants that threatens a Brazilian plantation. The story was adapted for an episode of the radio series Escape in 1948 and as the motion picture The Naked Jungle in 1954. The speedy deletion of this page is contested. ...
Leiningen Versus the Ants by Carl Stephenson is a classic short story published in the December 1938 edition of Esquire Magazine. ...
Escape was radios leading series of high adventure, airing on CBS from July 7, 1947 to September 25, 1954. ...
The Naked Jungle is a 1954 film directed by Byron Haskin, and starring Charlton Heston and Eleanor Parker. ...
In the MacGyver episode Trumbow's World (Season 1 Episode 6), MacGyver assists a reclusive landowner in Brazil to defend his home from army ants (referred to in the show as soldier ants). The size of the ant swarm is described as being several miles long and wide. The ants kill several humans in the episode within minutes of being swarmed. They are eventually defeated by flooding the fields on Trumbow's land. MacGyver is an American adventure television series, produced in the United States and Canada, about the laid-back, extremely resourceful secret agent MacGyver, played by Richard Dean Anderson. ...
Notes
External links Personal website on research and computer modeling of army ants (with video and images):
References and further reading - Brady, S. (2003). Evolution of the army ant syndrome: the origin and long-term evolutionary stasis of a complex of behavioral and reproductive adaptations.. PNAS 100(11): 6575-6579.
- Gotwald, W.H., Jr. (1995). Army ants: the biology of social predation. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-9932-1.
- Rice, Nathan H., and A. M. Hutson (2003). "Antbirds and Army-Ant Swarms", in Christopher Perrins (Ed.): Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds. Firefly Books, 449. ISBN 1-55297-777-3.
- Wilson, Edward O, and Bert Hölldobler, (1990) The Ants (Pulitzer Prize),
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, usually referred to as PNAS, is the official journal of the United States National Academy of Sciences. ...
Professor Christopher Miles Chris Perrins, FRS is a British biologist. ...
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