Species comparison

Oecophylla smaragdina vs Polyrhachis dives

Side by side: difficulty, size, growth, climate, hibernation and nuptial flights, from the data and sources of each species sheet.

Head to head

Oecophylla smaragdina and Polyrhachis dives compared fact by fact
Oecophylla smaragdinaPolyrhachis dives
Keeping
Difficulty
7/7

Advanced

Easier5/7

Intermediate

Escape risk
High
High
Diet
SugarInsects
SugarInsects
Best nests
Naturalistic setup · Test tube setup
Naturalistic setup · Acrylic nest · Ytong nest
Colony
Growth
Fast
Fast
Colony size
Reaches 2,000 workers
Reaches 3,000 workers
Workers
5–8 mm

majors up to 10 mm

5–8 mm

All the same size

Queen
20–25 mm
9–12 mm
Colony founding
Fully claustral

One or more queens

Semi-claustral

Several queens

Defense
Bites · Sprays formic acid
Bites · Sprays formic acid
Climate
Nest temperature
24–30 °C
25–30 °C
Nest humidity
65–85 %
60–80 %
Hibernation
Not needed
Not needed
Nuptial flights
No flights
No flights
Native range
Asia, Oceania
Asia, Oceania

Size to scale

  • Oecophylla smaragdina

    Workers · 5–8 mm
    Majors · ≤ 10 mm
    Queen · 20–25 mm

  • Polyrhachis dives

    Workers · 5–8 mm
    Queen · 9–12 mm
10 mm: both species are drawn at the same scale

How to tell them apart

Oecophylla smaragdina

Slender, long-legged workers of two size classes, small minors and larger majors, orange to brown in Asian stock and with a green gaster in Australian stock, plus large green to brown queens. Shops sell both forms under the same name, and the leaf nests stitched together with larval silk give the species away; the only other Oecophylla, O. longinoda, lives in Africa, and the black, spiny Polyrhachis dives is a different kind of weaver ant.

  • Tip Build the setup around a living, healthy host plant with large, flexible leaves, such as weeping fig (Ficus benjamina), coffee or citrus. One keeper's nests on money tree leaves turned brown and had to be rebuilt every few weeks, which stressed a small colony, while nests on coffee and hibiscus lasted for months.
  • Watch out Wash the plant, replace its soil and let it stand for a while before the ants move in. Nursery plants are often treated with insecticide, and keepers lost workers to the residues, in one case from new plants that had been washed, repotted and left for months before they joined a running colony.

Polyrhachis dives

Black workers, all of one size, with a silvery to golden sheen from the fine hairs on the gaster and the sharp spines on the thorax and the petiole that give the genus Polyrhachis its name. When disturbed they sit back on the gaster with its tip pointed up, ready to spray acid, and unlike the long-legged, orange or green Oecophylla weaver ants they are black and spiny.

  • Tip Give them a tall setup with cork bark, twigs, moss and dry plant material, and let them weave their own nest. Keepers report colonies moving into a cork piece, a hollow seed pod or a cavity in wood, while a heated nest basin offered to them was ignored at first.
  • Watch out Seal the setup completely and do not rely on an oil film alone. One keeper saw a worker, startled by a twitching cricket, race far up an oiled glass wall before slipping back, and a new colony vanished through a small gap into the electronics of a thermometer housing. Keepers combine an oil or PTFE barrier with talcum, a tight lid and fine gauze.

More comparisons

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Oecophylla smaragdina sheet Polyrhachis dives sheet

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