In May, I was lucky enough to visit northern Queensland, Australia. After landing at Cairns airport, while waiting for a taxi to take Mom and me to a rental car place, I spotted a trail of Oecophylla smaragdina workers, commonly referred to as Asian weaver ants or Green tree ants. There is no difference between the two, as both common names are for the same ant.
Soon after spotting the trail of workers, I found their nest, which is shown in the image below.
About an hour after arriving at the hotel in Port Douglas, I had a look around the yard, and to my surprise, spotted a small nest of green tree ants. This was followed up by the discovery of several more of these small nests, which in some cases were next to each other.
I also located a much bigger nest further up in a tree. This nest was a newer one because it was still green. As nests of this species age, the leaves comprising the nest die, thus losing their green color and turning dark brown. When the leaves die and render the nest unusable, the ants simply find a new grouping of leaves and build a new nest there.
Hours later, I discovered a group of workers doing what they’re famous for—nest building! Weaver ants start the process of building nests by locating a suitable cluster of leaves. Upon the discovery of such a site, workers begin grabbing onto the leaves using their mandibles and legs. If the distance between leaves is too great, swarms of workers will grab each other’s petiole (waist), creating a chain of ants.
Often several chains work in unison to pull the leaves together. Once the leaves are close enough together, other workers run to the nest and grab larvae of a specific instar (stage of development). These workers head back to the construction site and begin weaving the leaves together. They use the larvae like glue bottles to stitch the leaves together. The weaving is mostly done at night, most likely to hide the delicate process from predators, explaining why I nearly ran out of daylight to take any good photos.
Later in the trip, I visited The Melbourne Museum, which has four ant colonies. Among the insect specimens was a queen weaver ant, shown below.
