Habitat

Paraponera clavata, or commonly referred to as the Bullet Ant, are most readily found throughout the wet Neotropical rainforests ranging all the way from Nicaragua in the North, to Bolivia and Brazil in the Southern regions. In Peru, the bullet Ant utilizes both the primary and secondary rain forest growth for its habitat (Belk, 1989). They prefer wet and moist tropical rainforests with even amounts of rainfall throughout the year, and are more sensitive to abiotic variables such as temperature, soil types, and rainfall rather than to biotic factors like vegetation types within the surrounding area (Murphy, 2007) (Elahi, 2006).

 

 

P. clavata usually live in large colonies containing up to several hundred individuals. Ranging anywhere from sea level to 750 meters above ground, these colonies are located in burrows, shrubs (receiving very little sunlight), up in the canopy of trees, and most often are located in nests within the soil at the bottom of the large subterranean trees . The nests usually have one main entrance located at the base of a large tree trunk, however, if there are secondary entrances to the nest they are located elsewhere and are mainly used for soil removal from the nest itself. Within the colony's nests, a system of many tunnels and small compartments interconnect with each other to for a large and efficient underground system. The chambers located within the nest ranged between 5 and 10 centimeters in diameter, with flat floors and a dome-shaped ceiling that averaged 13 to 16 millimeters in height (Morgan, 2012).

Check out the unique Adaptations that P. clavata has evolved over time in order to survive, or return to the Home page.