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Dead Nomamyrmex esenbeckii army-ant major engaged in battle with dead Atta texana worker. I found 6 dead esenbeckii army ants on top of a large Atta texana mound (the 6 dead workers in third photo), and one of these esenbeckii majors had died while battling an Atta texana worker (first 2 photos). I had written before that I started to look for dead Nomamyrmex on top of Atta texana mounds, and this is the second time I found Nomamyrmex army ants associated with Atta texana. I searched during two days about 40 Atta texana mounds carefully for the presence of dead Nomamyrmex, and this is the only Nomamyrmex I found among these 40 Atta texana mounds.

Interestingly, this Nomamyrmex observation today was only about 70 meter distant from where I had found dead Nomamyrmex a year earlier in March 2022, at that time on top of a near-abandoned Atta texana mound (see here https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/108890321). It appears that a single Nomamyrex esenbeckii colony may have hounded the Atta texana at this site repeatedly (maybe continuously?) during the last year.

I used the Watkins 1977 & 1982 keys to ID this to esenbeckii (e.g., post-occipital sulcus present).

elevation 16 meter
observation UGM230209-16

Very unusual Tantilla. I’m originally thought it was a T gracilis with aberrant coloration. Very red with a stark white ventral that comes up nearly to the lateral midline of the body. Never seen anything like it out of the 50+ gracilis/nigriceps I’ve seen in the RGV.