Lemon Ant (Myrmelachista schumanni)

Myrmelachista schumanni (lemon ant), Sani Lodge, Ecuador (the ants are really in the photo...super tiny!)

Some regret here as I failed to capture the following high tech biological process in a way that does it full justice.

Our guides cut open the thick part of this plant's stem to reveal minuscule ants inside. These ants are nicknamed "lemon ants". They are so tiny that to the naked eye they appear mostly as small black dots. So using a wet finger, you can scoop up a whole bunch of them. Next, you put them on your tongue and get the lemon sensation, and you can directly swallow as they're too tiny to chew.

What I failed to realize whilst capturing this unusual ant and its edibility is that it's part of a Devil's Garden process. Here's a Devil's Garden we saw earlier in Colombia:
https://www.jungledragon.com/image/72175/devils_garden_la_isla_escondida_colombia.html
A Devil's Garden is a clearing in a forest that is not man-made. Which tends to be impossible in tropical forests where every inch of the forest floor is fought for by plants. The clearing is a result of a relationship between the plant in the middle and the ants, which by means of chemical warfare, restrict the growth of competing plants in the direct surroundings.

https://www.jungledragon.com/image/131472/duroia_hirsuta_sani_lodge_ecuador.html Ecuador,Ecuador 2021,Geotagged,Myrmelachista schumanni,Sani Lodge,South America,Spring,World,Yasuni National Park

Naming

Lemon ants get their name from the lemony taste of acids produced as part of a glandular chemical defense system. When crushed or attacked, citronellal pheromones are created to communicate alarm to nearby individuals, which also produces a citrus odor.

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

Taxonomy
Kingdom	Animalia
Division	Arthropoda
Class	Insecta
Order	Hymenoptera
Family	Formicidae
Genus	Myrmelachista
Species	M. schumanni

Photographed in
Ecuador