Workers are roughly 8–12 mm long.
Fine-art photographic collection
Myopopone castanea
A “Dracula ant” that raids giant beetle grubs and feeds from wounds opened in its own larvae.
About this species
Myopopone castanea(Smith, 1860)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Myopopone castanea is a rare Southeast Asian amblyoponine ant living in rotten wood and beneath bark. Small colonies prey on large wood-boring larvae and show the specialised larval haemolymph feeding that gave this lineage its Dracula-ant reputation.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Hymenoptera · Formicidae · Amblyoponinae · Myopopone
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
South and Southeast AsiaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
South and Southeast Asia
Rotten logs, stumps and the space beneath bark in humid forest.
Cryptic, foraging within wood and beneath the soil or bark surface.
Large beetle larvae and other soft-bodied invertebrates.
Small, often polydomous colonies occupying several cavities.
What makes this species remarkable?
Workers can paralyse a cerambycid beetle larva far heavier than an ant, then apparently bring their own larvae to the immobilised prey so the brood can feed directly.
Adults practise non-lethal larval haemolymph feeding: they pierce the skin of their own larvae and drink the fluid without killing them.
The species possesses a specialised basitarsal sulcus gland in the foreleg — an exocrine organ so unusual that it was only recently described anatomically.
More photographs
13