New species of ant discovered pottering below the Pilbara named after Voldemort

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Employees of Leptanilla voldemort sp. nov. from Western Australia in ethanol. Credit score: ZooKeys (2024). DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1197.114072

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Employees of Leptanilla voldemort sp. nov. from Western Australia in ethanol. Credit score: ZooKeys (2024). DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1197.114072

A learn about by means of The College of Western Australia has unearthed a brand new species of subterranean ant that stocks some characteristics with a well known Harry Potter villain.

The analysis, revealed in Zookeys, describes the brand new species Leptanilla voldemort as a faded ant with a narrow construct, spindly legs, and lengthy, sharp mandibles.
Lead researcher Dr. Mark Wong, a Forrest Fellow from UWA’s Faculty of Organic Sciences, mentioned its title (L. voldemort for brief) paid homage to the darkish wizard Lord Voldemort within the Harry Potter sequence.
“The fearsome antagonists in Harry Potter and the Ant each have a ghostly and narrow look and are living within the shadows,” Dr. Wong mentioned.
The ant was once came upon in an ecological survey that documented animals residing under floor within the arid Pilbara area within the north of Western Australia.
“Handiest two specimens of the brand new ant species have been discovered, and each have been gathered in a internet decreased down a 25-meter drill hollow and retrieved by means of scraping towards the outlet’s inside floor,” he mentioned.

Credit score: College of Western Australia

There are greater than 14,000 species of ants international, however most effective about 60 of those belong to the genus Leptanilla.
“In contrast to maximum ants, species of Leptanilla are living in small colonies, in most cases comprising a queen and just a hundred or so employees, and nest and forage solely underground,” Dr. Wong mentioned.
“Adapting to lifestyles in darkness, Leptanilla employees are blind, devoid of pigmentation, and measure between only one to 2 millimeters—no longer a lot greater than a grain of sand—permitting them to transfer without difficulty throughout the soil.”
Australia has one of the most best possible ranges of ant range on the planet—estimates vary from 1,300 to greater than 5,000 species—however L. voldemort is most effective the second one Leptanilla species came upon at the continent.
“From what we all know from the few observations of alternative Leptanilla species and the extremely specialised, sharp mandibles of L. Voldemort, this new species is nearly definitely a predator, a fearsome hunter at midnight,” Dr. Wong mentioned.
“Whilst the precise prey of L. voldemort stays unclear, different Leptanilla species are recognized to make use of their sharp jaws and strong stings to immobilize soil-dwelling centipedes a lot greater than themselves, prior to wearing their larvae over to feed at the carcass.”

Additional info:
Mark Ok. L. Wong et al, Leptanilla voldemort sp. nov., a gracile new species of the hypogaeic ant genus Leptanilla (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) from the Pilbara, with a key to Australian Leptanilla, ZooKeys (2024). DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1197.114072

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