Дөңгелек құмырсқалар: Африка және Азияның алып әскерлері

Driver ants (genus of insects)

Dorylus, also known as driver ants, safari ants, or siafu, is a large genus of army ants found primarily in central and east Africa, although the range also extends to southern Africa and tropical Asia. The term siafu is a loanword from Swahili, and is one of numerous similar words from regional Bantu languages used by indigenous peoples to describe various species of these ants. Unlike the New World members of the former subfamily Ecitoninae (now Dorylinae), 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. Colonies are enormous compared to other army ants and can contain over 20 million individuals. As with their American counterparts, workers exhibit caste polymorphism with the soldiers having particularly large heads that power their scissor like mandibles. They are capable of stinging, but very rarely do so, relying instead on their powerful shearing jaws. 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.

Seasonally, when food supplies become short, they leave the hill and form marching columns of up to 50,000,000 ants, which are considered a menace to people, though they can be easily avoided; a column can only travel about 20 metres in an hour. It is for those unable to move, or when the columns pass through homes, that there is the greatest risk. Their presence is, conversely, beneficial to certain human communities, such as the Maasai. They perform a pest prevention service in farming communities, consuming the majority of other crop pests, from insects to large rats. 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. 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. 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. Maasai moran), when suffering from a gash in the bush, 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 staples creates a seal that can hold for days at a time, and the procedure can be repeated, if necessary, allowing natural healing to commence. Several species in this genus carry out raids on termitaria, 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.

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, 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