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At 8 o'clock in the morning, I saw Nomamyrmex esenbeckii attack a large group of Atta laevigata, sting atta workers, kill them, rush into the nest to snatch the larva pupae, and the ground fight atta was no longer capable of recovery. The fighting continued underground, but it lasted until 10: 00, when Nommyrmex retreated after the pupa harvest was sufficient. The atta workers lost a lot, the Nomamyrmex workers very little

This nest of oriental army ants was collected when they were about to split up the colony. The new queen is in the upper right corner. The tarsus is still intact. The old queen is in the lower left corner. The tarsus has been lost in the migration. Unfortunately, We didn't contact the gatherer in time, and it was cooked and eaten.

Dead Nomamyrmex esenbeckii army-ant major engaged in battle with dead Atta texana worker. I found 6 dead esenbeckii army ants on top of a large Atta texana mound (the 6 dead workers in third photo), and one of these esenbeckii majors had died while battling an Atta texana worker (first 2 photos). I had written before that I started to look for dead Nomamyrmex on top of Atta texana mounds, and this is the second time I found Nomamyrmex army ants associated with Atta texana. I searched during two days about 40 Atta texana mounds carefully for the presence of dead Nomamyrmex, and this is the only Nomamyrmex I found among these 40 Atta texana mounds.

Interestingly, this Nomamyrmex observation today was only about 70 meter distant from where I had found dead Nomamyrmex a year earlier in March 2022, at that time on top of a near-abandoned Atta texana mound (see here https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/108890321). It appears that a single Nomamyrex esenbeckii colony may have hounded the Atta texana at this site repeatedly (maybe continuously?) during the last year.

I used the Watkins 1977 & 1982 keys to ID this to esenbeckii (e.g., post-occipital sulcus present).

elevation 16 meter
observation UGM230209-16