Workers vary from small raiders to large soldiers with curved mandibles.
Fine-art photographic collection
Eciton hamatum
An army ant whose moving columns repeatedly raid the forest for other social insects.
About this species
Army ant
Eciton hamatum(Fabricius, 1782)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Eciton hamatum is a Neotropical army ant. Colonies alternate between phases of frequent movement and more settled periods while mass raids sweep through forest litter and vegetation.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Hymenoptera · Formicidae · Eciton
Source checked · checked 2026-07-15
Central and northern South AmericaBroad documented localities — not a complete range map.
Southern Mexico through Central America into tropical South America.
Lowland tropical forest, secondary forest and shaded forest edge.
Raids are organised into dense columns and branching fronts, often during the day.
Predatory, with raids focused strongly on the brood of other ants and social wasps.
Colonies contain a permanently wingless queen and hundreds of thousands of workers; the temporary nest is a living bivouac made from the ants themselves.
What makes this species remarkable?
The colony has no permanent nest building: workers link their bodies into a protective bivouac around queen and brood.
Worker sizes form distinct functional groups, including heavily armed soldiers.
Birds and other animals follow raids to capture prey fleeing from the ants.
Sources and scientific references
More photographs
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