Chebucto Regional Softball Club

Probolomyrmex longinodus are a species of ant that nests in snail shells filled with soil. The entire genus is cryptic. Alex Wild has one of the few photos of a living ant:

Probolomyrmex

is an extremely rare proceratiine genus found in tropical regions around the world. Most species are eyeless and blind, perhaps inhabiting deep soil, but little is known about their biology. The photographs below may be the only ever taken of a living example.

(www.alexanderwild.com)

They are eyeless, and live in leaf litter, or in the previously mentioned shells.

Hard to study, hard to find, tricky to ID when you do find them. Absolute legends. Ants with secrets. #ants #rareAnt

Creatures with scientific names that betray how frustrated the scientists got trying to sort out their taxonomy.

Probolomyrmex (multiple species)
Camponotus confusus

There have to be more of these. I'd love to know the full story behind the names. Really there is a place in the world for a book that just goes into interesting taxonomic controversies and frustrations.

Have you encountered any scientific names that hint at someone pulling out their hair?

This is absolutely wild. Two populations of ants (Cataglyphis hispanica) in the deserts of Spain, the same species but separate genetic lineages. All workers are hybrids of both populations but in both cases, through social hybridogenesis the reproductive queens and males are only of one lineage or the other.

Queens of both species must mate out to produce workers (hybrids) but the workers never in turn reproduce.

They show it's been like this for a long long time!
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.2396

I just realized that Messor barbarus can't sting. And now I need to rethink something I thought was obvious about seed collecting ants.

Pogonomyrmex and Veromessor (the genuses of harvester ants we have in the Americas) can sting.

It seems that much like "Army Ants" the group "harvester ants" isn't as cohesive as I thought.

That said... they are somewhat related, both practice social hybridogenesis.

I'm stunned. Ants shock me every single day! They can't keep getting away with this!