Adventurous French Guyana

I am very sorry for being away for so long. I will be posting some personal impressions and comments on some of my latest trips... and on ants I have seen! I will start with French Guyana. I spent 10 days there after fire ants, Solenopsis saevissima. The little bastards almost killed me. I thought Brazilian fire ants (including S. invicta most readers here know) were nasty enough -- well, I had not yet met the fire ants in Guyana. They are larger, faster, redder (if there is such a word), and angrier!! Their underground nests (mounds are small because of the soil quality) undoubtedly stem directly from Hell: once you touch them, a surge of red-hot walking needles bursts straight for you. And they know how to get around any protection you have. I will give you the general idea below. 

This is one of the places in where I could find many nests. As you can see, there are no visible mounds. You step on a nest and you will soon realize it -- nice and gentle!

 A glimpse on the pesky things. I will illustrate them further in following posts. As I said, quite reddish, actually rather orange in colour. They were nasty!

 

This is outcome of my first day in the field. Disgusting and uncomfortable, to say the least. Situation got worst with passing days, no matter what protections I wore.