Workers are roughly 7–11 mm long.
Fine-art photographic collection
Polyrhachis schistacea
An ant that borrows silk from its own larvae to sew a roof over the colony.
About this species
Polyrhachis schistacea(Gerstäcker, 1859)
Information reviewed15 July 2026
Polyrhachis schistacea is an African spiny ant that nests in soil but constructs a woven superstructure above the entrance. Workers manipulate larvae as living silk dispensers to bind plant fragments together.
Taxonomy
Animalia · Arthropoda · Insecta · Hymenoptera · Formicidae · Formicinae · Polyrhachis
Accepted taxon. · checked 2026-07-15
Eastern and southern AfricaBroad range and selected reference localities — not a complete occurrence map.
Eastern and southern Africa
Grassland, savannah and open woodland.
Workers forage on the ground and low vegetation.
Honeydew, nectar and animal prey.
Ground-nesting colony with one or more large entrances beneath a woven cover.
What makes this species remarkable?
Workers carry silk-producing larvae in their mandibles and stroke them across grass fragments, using larval silk as thread even though adult ants cannot spin it themselves.
The result is a woven dome or canopy over the soil nest — architecture made from clipped vegetation and biologically produced fibre.
Several large round entrances can open beneath the roof, turning an ordinary patch of grass into a concealed, weather-resistant colony complex.