Papyrius nitidus

Shining Coconut Ant at Theodore, ACT

Papyrius nitidus at Theodore, ACT - 22 Dec 2020
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Identification history

Papyrius nitidus 27 Dec 2020 MichaelMulvaney
Papyrius nitidus 22 Dec 2020 patrickharvey

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4 comments

   24 Dec 2020
Pat - thanks for the updated location - this doesn't look like the usual coconut ant which has a dark single tone abdomen. Did it have the coconut ant smell - the grass/carton construction or sapling "base camps"?
JonLewis wrote:
   26 Dec 2020
Hi Pat & Michael. I can't really see the ant well enough to ID it positively. The light and dark bands on the abdomen are caused when the ant has sucked up a lot of honeydew, and the abdomen swells up like a balloon, exposing the thinner, more lightly coloured sections of each of the plates which makes up the abdomen. So it could be Papyrius, but the smell test would be important to confirm the ID. Cheers, Jon
patrickharvey wrote:
   27 Dec 2020
They definitely had the grass carton construction and smelled like coconut when squashed. I had photographs of the nests but there was some kind of issue when uploading the images
JonLewis wrote:
   27 Dec 2020
Thanks Patrick - all the proof we need. Cheers, Jon

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Location information

Sighting information

  • 1 - 3 Abundance
  • 22 Dec 2020 09:55 AM Recorded on
  • patrickharvey Recorded by

Species information

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  • Nearby sighting(s) of same species
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