Ant Exhibition

14 Aug, 2019 by Siyang

A delayed post of 2 weeks, when I visited the first ever exhibition of ants in Singapore at Katong. It was an amazing exhibition from Zat's ant collection, 21 species in all. You can read more about this "ant-man" in the CNA article

One of the most fascinating ant I saw was the queen of the Giant Forest Ant (top left & cover photo), a species that we can often see the lone large worker ant wondering at the forest floors of our nature reserves. This specimen is indeed deserving of its scientific name of Dinomyrmex gigas, being around 3cm long! Furthermore, the queen is said to be able to fetch up to a whooping $1,000 Euro in the black market!

Another interesting species was the trap-jaw ant (Odontomachus simillimus). It can snap its jaw at an incredible speed and the force can even flip it backwards to escape from predators. We get to see this up-close and well, it was pretty awesome.

The exhibition was well managed, as they ensured each group of participants were allocated guides to explain the various ant species. Each ant exhibit also have an information tag where we can learn more about them.

This exhibition ends on 31st of Aug, so do visit it before it ends! It costs $11 per ticket, but I can assure that it is worth every cent.