Workers are commonly 9–12 mm long.
Fine-art photographic collection
Odontoponera denticulata
A queen that founds a colony by leaving her first brood unguarded and personally hunting for their food.
About this species
Odontoponera denticulata(F. Smith, 1858)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Odontoponera denticulata is a robust ground-nesting ant of tropical Asia and New Guinea. Colonies are founded semi-claustrally, and workers later forage as independent hunters rather than following mass trails.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Hymenoptera · Formicidae · Ponerinae · Odontoponera
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
South and Southeast Asia east to New GuineaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
South and Southeast Asia east to New Guinea
Open forest, plantations, gardens, paths and disturbed ground with soil suitable for nesting.
Mostly ground-active; workers forage singly and queens also leave the nest during colony founding.
Live arthropods, carrion and sugary liquids.
Small to medium soil colonies headed by a queen.
What makes this species remarkable?
A founding queen does not seal herself safely underground: she repeatedly emerges to hunt while her eggs and larvae remain in the incomplete nest.
Workers search alone and can retrieve substantial prey without laying a mass-recruitment trail, so each forager operates as an independent predator.
The species was long confused with the very similar O. transversa; detailed morphology showed that both can occur together, revealing two distinct predators hidden under one name.
Sources and scientific references
More photographs
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