Workers are roughly 8–11 mm long.
Fine-art photographic collection
Platythyrea lamellosa
A queenless ant society in which one ordinary worker monopolises motherhood while her nestmates’ ovaries shut down.
About this species
Platythyrea lamellosa(Roger, 1860)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Platythyrea lamellosa is a southern African ponerine ant with colonies that lack a morphologically specialised queen. Reproduction is instead concentrated in a single inseminated worker.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Hymenoptera · Formicidae · Ponerinae · Platythyrea
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
Southern Africa, including South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and MozambiqueBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Southern Africa, including South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique
Dry woodland, savannah and soil beneath stones or logs.
Workers forage singly on the ground, often under cover.
Predatory on small arthropods.
Queenless colonies recorded from fewer than 20 to more than 250 workers.
What makes this species remarkable?
Colonies have no queen caste: one mated worker acts as the gamergate and lays the fertilised eggs that become new workers.
Young virgin workers begin to activate their ovaries, but in the presence of the reproductive worker that development reverses and the ovaries regress.
A colony can contain hundreds of outwardly similar workers while fertility remains extraordinarily concentrated in a single individual whose status is behavioural, not visually obvious.