Meranoplus Bicolor
 
Meranoplus Bicolor are a striking and cute fuzzy ants which are renown for their ability to live along side other species in tanks. This is because of that fur like appearance. Acting as a sheild it works perfectly at defending from others.
 
With this said they move slowly and sweetly to explore. Like they have no care in the world. While photographing them we used soft ant andling tweezers to move the queen and the workers "dropped and curled" on seeing them get close. This "play dead" behaviour was fun to watch and is one of the reasons as to their success in the wild.
 
Their native habitat is in bare lands, like grasslands or sparse forest. They nest in the soil and forage for food on the ground. As a calm and slow moving species they are primarily scavengers who will take food as opportunity presents itself and  they reach equlibrium at around 300 workers although we would be keen to see if this increases in captivity where they have easy access to more food that their scavenging wild sisters.
 
Queen
5mm to 7mm (as measured by us)
 
Worker
3mm to 4mm (as measured by us)
 
colony size
up to 300 workers in the wild
 
Habitat
suited to natural cohabiting nests with bare space to nest or to artificial nesting.
 
Diet
Small dead insects and sugars (some sources say they consume and plant small seeds too)