One of my grandsons went walkabout in Australia and
sent me two very dried up ants. They were very brittle and one
broke up, originally the bodies were brown except for the abdomen
which was a blue/green colour obviously coloured by the contents.
The Aborigines bite off the abdomen and eat them as a source of
vitamins. My grandson tried them and declared the taste quite
pleasant.
When
they arrived I soaked them in alcohol for 24 hours, then
softened, cleared the body contents and mounted them on slides.
(Instructions on how to do this is in Insects, NBS
Microscopy Booklet No. 9 available from Northern Biological
Supplies). Clearing caused the abdomen to lose its contents and
the blue-green colour leaving only the brown chitin. After
softening I was able to spread them on slides the broken one as
best I could, the other making quite a nice mount missing only a
couple of segments from one antenna (Fig. 1). The ant is 5mm from
tip of the mandibles to the rear of the abdomen. Fig. 2 shows a
tarsus (foot).
Fig. 3
shows the quite fearsome looking mandibles. The mandibles and the
stomach contents leads me to suppose they are a species of
leaf-cutting ant. The only books I have on insects describe
European species. Maybe one of our friends in Australia will let
us have more information.
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