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Now THOSE are some horns! Alex Wild of Myrmecos blog found this wasp with some serious antennae in Australia, and got it identified within 24 hours by tweeting it: Link
Previously on Neatorama: When Army Ants Attack by Alex Wild
Photo: Alex
Wild
That's an Eciton hamatum soldier ant from the Jatun Sacha reserve, Ecuador, taking a big bite (well, relative to its size) out of Alex Wild's skin. Ouch!
The ant's ice-tong mandibles latch onto the enemy and give her the leverage to use her stinger at the rear end of the ant. This makes her very difficult to remove (notice the mandible buried deep inside the skin).
The soldier caste of Eciton hamatum is similar to that of E. burchellii, bearing the same defensive tusks. Eciton hamatum soldiers, though, have a much larger set of horns along the back corners of the head. These protrusions presumably protect the ant’s vulnerable neck in fights with other ants, and this species certainly spends a great deal more time fighting other ants than does E. burchellii.
Despite the scary look, Alex told us that E. hamatum isn't actually that bad:
If you’ve got an assignment to shoot army ants and your editor neglects to specify the species, I’d hold out for these guys. You won’t get swarmed over, gored, bitten, stung up, or otherwise assaulted anywhere near the amount you suffer by approaching the vicious E. burchellii. [...]
On a personal note, I found photographing this species to be great fun. Most of my Eciton encounters over the years have been with E. burchellii or E. vagans. In comparison, E. hamatum is charming. Their physique is a bit more pudgy, they are an unusual shade of orange, and they are much less aggressive. The effect is almost comical.
Check out more of Alex Wild's fantastic photographs of Army Ants from around the world: Link | Gallery - Thanks Alex!
A new article released today in the journal of African Inverterates by Alex Wild and Irina Brake details the unusual behavior of a group of kleptoparasitic flies in South Africa. They lay in wait for ants, and mug them, literally stealing food from their mouths!
Last July, while wandering about the coastal forests of St. Lucia in eastern South Africa, I happened across an intriguing scene half-way up a spiny Acacia trunk. Some diminutive gray flies were pestering a trail of ants as they walked along the tree.
The flies’ exact activities were hard to observe with the naked eye, but it looked like nothing I’d ever seen. They seemed to be grabbing ants, pinning them to the trunk, and after a few seconds letting them go again.
The macro lens on my camera serves as a handy field microscope. Conveniently, the flies were so focused on attacking the ants I could place the lens nearly on top of them and observe the details of their activities without spooking them. On inspection, it turned out that the flies were stealing food.
From the Upcoming 
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