Red Spider Ant - Leptomyrmex rufipes
Subfamily Dolichoderinae
This page contains pictures and information about Red Spider Ants that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Body length 12mm
- Spider Ants are fast moving, with long legs, long antenna, elongated head and thin body. Red Spider Ants have the orange-brown body with black gaster.
- When disturbed, they will cock up their gaster in the air.
- In Brisbane, Red Spider Ants are commonly found in wet eucalypt forests and rainforest. They are usually found foraging alone.
- We found the Red Spider Ants in rainforest and semi-rainforest near Mt Coot-tha, Mt Nebo and Mt Glorious. They were usually running up and down on tree trunk or wandering on forest floor alone. We seldom found them in group as other ants species.
- In the above pictures, the ant was alone and working very hard moving a roll of leaf material. Inside the roll could be a small caterpillar.
- We found one in Mt Tamborine on late winter Sept 2007. It was a cool cloudy day and it was the only ant we found in the rainforest in that day. The ant was wandering alone.
- Reference:
- 1. Wildlife of Greater Brisbane - New edition, Published by Queensland Museum 2007, p171.
