Polyrhachis lamellidens

I am not one of the cognoscenti when it comes to scientific names, but there she blows just in case you are. Toge Ari is the Japanese name, thorn ant is what I would say that meant in English. Drawing on top of a sketch of my bench project, not to scale obviously.

There was a little nest of these monkeys in some pear wood we got the other day and for a moment Sammy and I pondered over why they all looked like they had some other creature riding piggy back. I went and got the binoculars for a closer look. This was a mistake as I wasted quite a few moments studying the array of hook like structures on their backs. Earlier in the day I had tapped a bunch of them out into the pond for the fish, but having seen them close up I went back to check on their fate and was immediately forced to mount a rescue mission when I saw them floating in little rafts each holding the little group of eggs they had gathered as high above the water as they could. I didn't actually make helicopter noises while on coast guard duty, but it was a close thing. Each time I rescued a raft by holding a scrap of wood next to it the first one on would climb straight up while the others grabbed on tight and held on so that the remainder of the crew could keep their grip on their fellows while I lifted them to safety. I suspected these first off the ship Johnnies of being a little treacherous, but I suppose they could claim to have been mapping a road or some such community minded effort. Anyway, no doubt I will be summoned to a war crimes trial in the Hague in due course, but having seen the error of my ways and acknowledging the heroic efforts to preserve their offspring in the utmost adversity I can claim to have made my best to recover all I could see. I have never seen this species before, but apparently they are among the commoners. Throughout the past few days we have come across individuals and small groups as we clear away the wood. They have all been adopting a sort of standby pose with their tails between their legs waiting for the temperature to rise and pull them from dormancy. Snow forecast for tomorrow, poor little buggers.