Polyrhachis mitrata

Red Black Polyrhachis worker (红黑多刺蟻)

Quick entry on my log of ants!

Together with the Polyrhachis bicolor (read log here) colony that I recently received, the seller was kind to also send me an awesome species. They are called as Polyrhachis mitrata (红黑多刺蟻).

I think these ants are absolutely stunning!

My colony of Red Black Polyrhachis

Of course under bad light they just look black, but under normal conditions you can easily see the fantastic reds on their gasters.

My colony of Red Black Polyrhachis

The colony is very small, one queen, two workers and four or five larvae. In the photos below you may be able to see the queen holding the eggs (just few days back).

I have been feeding them the usual, honeywater and crushed baby red runner roaches and they seem to be enjoying.

In one day they cleaned the roach body and the larvae already seem a little bit bigger.

Red Black Polyrhachis worker (红黑多刺蟻)

In terms of size, these are small ants, similarly sized as Polyrhachis thrinax (you can read a little bit more about them here Polyrhachis - The Spiny Ants), but while P. thrinax reacts very negatively to test tube handling or any vibration, these on the other hand, seem quite chilled.
It is my assumption that these will also weave nests and should be mainly arboreal.

It shouldn't take long to prove this, once the larvae grow a bit more, they should start weaving the tube.

Red Black Polyrhachis Queen (红黑多刺蟻)

Red Black Polyrhachis worker (红黑多刺蟻)

This is it for this Log entry. Thank you for reading.

Cheers!