Crematogaster peringueyi
In 3 days ~30% in a week ~60%
Crematogaster peringueyi is a southern African arboreal species of ant. They are commonly known as the black cocktail ant or swartwipgatmier (Afrikaans) for their colour and habit of arching their abdomens when alarmed. They make their nests in old Protea flowers, dead, hollow branches, and under tree bark, also making nests constructed of well-chewed vegetable matter with the consistency of papier-mâché. The outer walls of these nests are blackened by the salivary secretions, and are thin, with the interior divided into irregular, connected cells, like a coarse sponge. These more or less spherical nests, ranging in diameter from 10–30 cm, are built in a fork or among the branches, some of the branches passing through the nest. Workers are glossy black and 3–5 mm long, and the larger queen is about eight mm long, both having heart-shaped abdomens.
Pheromone alarms are common among the social Hymenoptera. Some of these have been chemically identified, but the number is still small compared with the large number of species making use of them. The ketone octan-3-one is seen as the major component of the pheromone complex secreted from the heads of C. peringueyi... Wikipedia →
| # | Park | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Table Mountain National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa | |
| 2 | Garden Route National Park | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cape Town | 🇿🇦 South Africa |
With luck
About 10% of wildlife watchers report a Black Cocktail Ant sighting in Cape Town on a given day, based on 207 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 25th most-seen of the 311 insects we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 30%, and over a week to about 60%, if each day is a fresh chance.
April and May
In those months about 20% of wildlife watchers report a Black Cocktail Ant in Cape Town on a given day, against under 5% in January, the lowest month.
Between 10 am and 1 pm
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Black Cocktail Ant sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
Only Cape Town, in our data
Cape Town is the only city on Wallace's Line with enough records to rate Black Cocktail Ant sightings: about 10% of wildlife watchers there report one on a given day.
Same family: Formicidae
The closest relatives of the Black Cocktail Ant that you can see in Cape Town (family Formicidae, Ants) are Small Black Sugar Ant (about 10%), Cape Harvester Ant (about 10%) and African Big-Headed Ant (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Black Cocktail Ant is recorded against all the insects logged in Cape Town (207 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
