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Fish-hook ant (Polyrhachis bihamata)

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Found a rare ant called Fish-hook ant!

Fish-hook ant (Polyrhachis bihamata) observed on a RAP expedition to the Virachey National Park, Cambodia, 2007. RAP scientists, as well as mammal and bird predators, think twice before messing with this large (1.5 cm) ant in the forests of Cambodia. The curved spines can easily slice through skin and tend to hold on for a while. These ants live in large numbers in nests in dead tree trunks on the forest floor, and when attacked they swarm out and hook onto each other, making extracting an individual ant by a predator difficult. The hooking together behaviour is inadvertent (they do not seek each other to hook together), but nevertheless quite effective as a defence mechanism.

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Octoboy-the-8th's avatar
Sure is the imposing creature with all those spines! Nice job getting a photo of this fearsome-looking ant!