Jumper Ant - Myrmecia nigrocincta
Subfamily Myrmeciinae
This page contains pictures and information about Jumper Ants that we found in the Brisbane area, Queensland, Australia.
- Body length 15mm
- Jumper Ants are common in Brisbane bushlands. We found these Jumper Ants in eucalypt forests include Toohey Forest, Karawatha Forest and Daisy Hill. They are also found in rainforest near Mt Nebo and Mt Glorious. In Brisbane Forest Park, they can be found on almost every large tree trunks.
- About to jump
- They are medium in body size, with large eyes and elongated mandibles. They have bright colours, with a dark green head, brown body and dark brown legs.
- The workers were foraging alone on low vegetation during the day. Sometimes we saw a few of them hunting on the same plants.
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- Not very often those ants can be found foraging on forest ground. Although they hunts alone, usually a group of them can be found in a small area.
- They are found on large tree trunk.
- Jumper Ants have good eyesight and they respond even while we were one meter away. Their last pair of legs are strong and enables them to jump 10cm among vegetations like a small grasshopper. This is why they commonly known as Jack Jumpers. The above pictures show the ants about to jump.
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Foraging on leaves
Foraging on forest floor
Foraging on tree trunk
They jump long distance
Jumper Ants' nest
- The Jumper Ants' nest can be found on the vertical wall of footpath in Rainforest. We can found quite a number of those net near Mt Nebo and Mt Glorious.
- Near one of the Jumper Ants' nest entry we noticed there were a lot of empty beetle shells. Some ants were still moving them. We believed those were the litter removed from the ant nest. Those beetles were one of the ants' larvae major food source.
- They are aggressive and have a very potent sting. They will chase intruders away from their nest.
- Their main prey include those medium size caterpillars.
- The Jumper Ant found a medium size looper caterpillar. The caterpillar applied the bungee-jump method to escape.
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- Finally, the Jumper Ant captured the caterpillar. It stung the caterpillar a few time when the caterpillar was struggling. The caterpillar became motionless after a few seconds.
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- Found anther Jumper Ants moving a caterpillar. It seems that caterpillars are one of the main prey of Jumper Ants.
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- We saw different species of bull-dog ants walked away from spider web a few times. Please also check this page.
- The Jumper Ant can walk on spider nest. Once we were taking the photos of Jumper Ant, it ran away and accidentally felt onto a spider web. The ant just slowly and carefully walked away without any problem.
- This times the Jumper Ant is not so lucky. It felt into victim of Triangular Spider.
Hunting Caterpillars
They walk on spider web
As Prey
Ticks on Bull Ant
- Please check this page for the general information about Bull Ants.
- Reference:
- 1. Australian Ant Image Database - Australian Ant Image Database, R.W Taylor.
- 2. Insects of Australia and New Zealand - R. J. Tillyard, Angus & Robertson, Ltd, Sydney, 1926, p287.
- 3. Myrmecia nigrocincta Smith, 1858 - CSIRO, 2010. Ants Down Under, viewed 15 March 2010, <http://anic.ento.csiro.au/ants>.
