''Dorylus'', also known as driver ants, safari ants, or siafu, is a large

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

army ant The name army ant (or legionary ant or ''marabunta'') is applied to over 200 ant species in different lineages. Because of their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", a huge number of ants forage simultaneously over a limited ...

s found primarily in central and east

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, although the range also extends to

southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

and tropical

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. The term siafu is a

loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

from

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language officially used in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes. * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa. * Swahili culture, the culture of the Swahili p ...

, and is one of numerous similar words from regional

Bantu languages The Bantu languages (English: , Proto-Bantu language, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀), or Ntu languages are a language family of about 600 languages of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern, East Africa, Eastern and Southeast Africa, South ...

used by

indigenous peoples There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

to describe various species of these ants. Unlike the

New World The term "New World" is used to describe the majority of lands of Earth's Western Hemisphere, particularly the Americas, and sometimes Oceania."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: ...

members of the former subfamily Ecitoninae (now

Dorylinae Dorylinae is an ant subfamily, with distributions in both the Old World and New World. Brady ''et al.'' (2014) Synonym (taxonomy), synonymized the previous dorylomorph subfamilies (Aenictinae, Aenictogitoninae, Cerapachyinae, Ecitoninae, and Lep ...

), members of this genus form temporary subterranean bivouacs in underground cavities which they excavate and inhabit - either for a few days or up to three months. Also, unlike some New World army ants, driver ants are not specialized predators of other species of ant, instead being more generalistic with a diet consisting of a diversity of arthropods. Their

colonies A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their '' metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often or ...

are enormous compared to other ant species, and can contain over 20 million individuals. As with their

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

counterparts, workers exhibit caste polymorphism with the soldiers having particularly large heads that power their scissor-like

mandible In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone i ...

s. They are capable of

stinging Sting may refer to: * Stinger or sting, a structure of an animal to inject venom, or the injury produced by a stinger * Irritating hairs or prickles of a stinging plant, or the plant itself Fictional characters and entities * Sting (Middle-ear ...

, but very rarely do so, relying instead on their powerful shearing jaws. A large part of their diet consists of

earthworms An earthworm is a soil-dwelling terrestrial animal, terrestrial invertebrate that belongs to the phylum Annelida. The term is the common name for the largest members of the class (biology), class (or subclass (biology), subclass, depending on ...

. Driver ant queens are the largest living ants known, with the largest measuring between 40 - 63 millimeters (1.5 - 2.4 inches) in total body length depending on their physiological condition.

Life cycle

Seasonally, when

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for Nutrient, nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or Fungus, fungal origin and contains essential nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, protein (nutrient), proteins, vitamins, ...

supplies become short, they leave the hill and form marching columns of up to 20,000,000 ants, which constitute a considerable threat to humans, though they can be easily avoided as a column can only travel about 20 meters in an hour. It is for those unable to move, or when the columns pass through homes, that there is the greatest risk. The presence of a mobile column of safari ants is, conversely, beneficial to certain human communities, such as the

Maasai Maasai may refer to: *Maasai people *Maasai language *Maasai mythology * MAASAI (band) See also * Masai (disambiguation) Masai may refer to: *Masai, Johor, a town in Malaysia * Masai Plateau, a plateau in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India *Maasai peopl ...

. They perform a pest prevention service in farming communities, consuming the majority of other crop-pests, from insects to large

rat Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents. Species of rats are found throughout the order Rodentia, but stereotypical rats are found in the genus ''Rattus''. Other rat genera include '' Neotoma'' (pack rats), '' Bandicota'' (bandicoo ...

s. For example, driver ants prey on larvae of the African sugarcane borer, a pest moth in sub-Saharan Africa. The characteristic long columns of ants will fiercely defend themselves against anything that attacks them. Columns are arranged with the smaller ants being flanked by the larger soldier ants. These instinctively take up positions as sentries, and set a perimeter corridor through which the smaller ants can run safely. Their bite is severely painful, each soldier leaving two puncture wounds when removed. Removal is difficult, however, as their jaws are extremely strong, and one can pull a soldier ant in two without it releasing its hold. Large numbers of ants can kill small or immobilized animals and strip them to husks. Such is the strength of the ant's jaws that, in East Africa, they are used as natural emergency sutures. Various East African indigenous tribal peoples (e.g. the Maasai moran), when suffering from a

laceration A wound is any disruption of or damage to living tissue, such as skin, mucous membranes, or organs. Wounds can either be the sudden result of direct trauma (mechanical, thermal, chemical), or can develop slowly over time due to underlying diseas ...

in the wilds, will use the soldiers to stitch the wound by getting the ants to bite on both sides of the gash, then breaking off the body. This use of ants as makeshift

surgical staple Surgical staples are specialized Staple (fastener), staples used in surgery in place of surgical suture, sutures to close skin wounds or to resection (surgery), resect and/or anastomosis, connect parts of an Organ (biology), organ (e.g. bowels, ...

s creates a seal that can hold for days at a time, and the procedure can be repeated, if necessary, allowing natural healing to commence. All ''Dorylus'' species are blind, and, like most varieties of ants, communicate primarily through

pheromone A pheromone () is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting like hormones outside the body of the secreting individual, to affect the behavio ...

s. In the mating season,

alate Alate (Latin ''ālātus'', from ''āla'' (“wing”)) is an adjective and noun used in entomology and botany to refer to something that has wings or winglike structures. In entomology In entomology, "alate" usually refers to the winged form of ...

s (winged drones, queens of driver-ant species do not grow wings) are formed. The drones are larger than the soldiers and the queens are even larger. Driver ants do not perform a nuptial flight, but mate on the ground and the queens go off to establish new colonies. As with most

ant Ants are Eusociality, eusocial insects of the Family (biology), family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the Taxonomy (biology), order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from Vespoidea, vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cre ...

s, workers and soldiers are sterile females, and so do not reproduce. Male driver ants, sometimes known as "sausage flies" (a term also applied to males of New World dorylines) due to their bloated, sausage-like

abdomen The abdomen (colloquially called the gut, belly, tummy, midriff, tucky, or stomach) is the front part of the torso between the thorax (chest) and pelvis in humans and in other vertebrates. The area occupied by the abdomen is called the abdominal ...

s, are among the largest ant morphs and were originally believed to be members of a different species. Males leave the colony soon after hatching but are drawn to the scent trail left by a column of siafu once they reach sexual maturity. When a colony of driver ants encounters a male, they tear his wings off and carry him back to the nest to be mated with a recently hatched queen. As in the majority of ant species, males die shortly afterward. Driver ant queens exhibit

polyandry Polyandry (; ) is a form of polygamy in which a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time. Polyandry is contrasted with polygyny, involving one male and two or more females. If a marriage involves a plural number of "husbands and wives ...

; young queens from some species with large colony sizes must mate with 10–20 males before they have gathered enough sperm for their reproductive lives. Once the queen is ready, roughly half of the workers in the colony will leave with her to found a new colony. Driver ant queens are the largest ants on Earth and have the greatest egg-laying capacity among insects, laying several million eggs each month. Several species in this genus carry out raids on

termitaria Termites are a group of detritivore, detritophagous Eusociality, eusocial cockroaches which consume a variety of Detritus, decaying plant material, generally in the form of wood, Plant litter, leaf litter, and Humus, soil humus. They are dist ...

, paralyzing or killing termites and carting them back to the nest. Colonies of driver-ant species have only one queen. When she dies, the surviving workers may try to join another colony, but in other cases, when two colonies of the same driver-ant species meet, they usually change the marching directions to avoid conflicts.

Species

* '' D. acutus'' Santschi, 1937 * '' D. aethiopicus'' Emery, 1895 * '' D. affinis'' Shuckard, 1840 * '' D. agressor'' Santschi, 1923 * '' D. alluaudi'' Santschi, 1914 * '' D. atratus'' Smith, 1859 * '' D. atriceps'' Shuckard, 1840 * '' D. attenuatus'' Shuckard, 1840 * '' D. bequaerti'' Forel, 1913 * '' D. bishyiganus'' (Boven, 1972) * '' D. braunsi'' Emery, 1895 * '' D. brevipennis'' Emery, 1895 * '' D. brevis'' Santschi, 1919 * '' D. buyssoni'' Santschi, 1910 * '' D. congolensis'' Santschi, 1910 * '' D. conradti'' Emery, 1895 * '' D. depilis'' Emery, 1895 * '' D. diadema'' Gerstaecker, 1859 * '' D. distinctus'' Santschi, 1910 * '' D. ductor'' Santschi, 1939 * '' D. emeryi'' Mayr, 1896 * '' D. erraticus'' (Smith, 1865) * '' D. faurei'' Arnold, 1946 * '' D. fimbriatus'' (Shuckard, 1840) * '' D. fulvus'' (Westwood, 1839) * '' D. funereus'' Emery, 1895 * '' D. furcatus'' (Gerstaecker, 1872) * '' D. fuscipennis'' (Emery, 1892) * '' D. gaudens'' Santschi, 1919 * '' D. ghanensis'' Boven, 1975 * '' D. gribodoi'' Emery, 1892 – includes ''D. gerstaeckeri'' Emery, 1895 * '' D. helvolus'' (Linnaeus, 1764) * '' D. katanensis'' Stitz, 1911 * '' D. kohli'' Wasmann, 1904 * '' D. labiatus'' Shuckard, 1840 * '' D. laevigatus'' (Smith, 1857) * ''Dorylus lamottei'' (= ''D. gribodoi'') Bernard, 1953 * '' D. leo'' Santschi, 1919 * '' D. mandibularis'' Mayr, 1896 * '' D. mayri'' Santschi, 1912 * '' D. moestus'' Emery, 1895 * '' D. molestus'' Wheeler, 1922 * '' D. montanus'' Santschi, 1910 * '' D. niarembensis'' (Boven, 1972) * '' D. nigricans''

Illiger Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger (19 November 1775 – 10 May 1813) was a German entomologist and zoologist. He founded the entomological periodical ''Magazin für Insektenkunde.'' The plant genus '' Illigera'' is named in his honour. Biography Illi ...

, 1802 * '' D. ocellatus'' (Stitz, 1910) * '' D. orientalis'' Westwood, 1835 * '' D. politus'' Emery, 1901 * '' D. rufescens'' Santschi, 1915 * '' D. savagei'' Emery, 1895 * '' D. schoutedeni'' Santschi, 1923 * '' D. spininodis'' Emery, 1901 * '' D. stadelmanni'' Emery, 1895 * '' D. stanleyi'' Forel, 1909 * '' D. staudingeri'' Emery, 1895 * '' D. striatidens'' Santschi, 1910 * '' D. termitarius'' Wasmann, 1911 * '' D. titan'' Santschi, 1923 * '' D. vishnui'' Wheeler, 1913 * '' D. westwoodii'' (Shuckard, 1840) * '' D. wilverthi'' Emery, 1899

References

External links

Dorylus on Antweb
{{Authority control Dorylinae Ant genera Taxa named by Johan Christian Fabricius