Review: Ants and Termites (Club Earth)

Review of the complete set of Ants and Termites by Club Earth. WOW, I only recently found out about this set (again, courtesy of Froggie). What a remarkable group of critters to specialize in for a set, and the name is somewhat misleading because there is also the only known figure of a member of the order Zoraptera (6, below)!!!!!

Ants and termites are behaviorally similar but not at all related, and termites have recently been sunk into the cockroaches. The zorapterans appear to be at least nestled among the orthopteroids and are more-closely related to the termites than the ants.

The figures are comparable in size with PV, K&M, and other Club Earth figures, and larger and more solid than most bin-style sets. Most are obviously unique, as termite figures are rare and how often do we get species or even genus designations for ant figures?!?!

The common names below are what is stamped on the figure; the Latin names are of my choosing. The set seems to be focused on North America, so that made it somewhat easier to assign genera and sometimes species.

1. big-headed ant, Pheidole megacephala. This is my second figure of this genus, as a big-headed ant was included in the World of Nature Insect Collection by Funrise Toys (http://animaltoyforum.com/index.php?topic=1621.0).

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2. Texas shed-builder ant, Crematogaster lineolata. Not much to add since it’s apparently a unique species and a cool little figure.

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3. arid-lands honey ant, Myrmecocystus sp. There are enough ‘honey pot’ ants that I could not assign an exact species. They chose to make a winged version, which is too bad. I think a honey-engorged replete would have been more fun!

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4. Pacific Coast termite, Zootermopsis angusticollis. One of two termites in the set, this one represents a really nice soldier!!! My only other soldier termites are by Wicked Cool Toys (Wild Kraats) and an unknown manufacturer. Funrise Toys did a ‘king termite’ (see link above under #1).

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5. Texas carpenter ant, Camponotus texanus. Many carpenter ants are fairly uniform in appearance, at least to us non-specialists, so I based the Latin name on the common name. I have a large carpenter ant figure by K&M and a queen and three workers of C. japonicus by Epoch.

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6. zorapteran, Zorotypus sp. Here we go, the crown jewel, the ONLY (to my knowledge) figure of Zoraptera. If North American, like everything else in this set, the figure probably represents Z. hubbardi.

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7. subterranean termite, Reticulitermes sp. A winged figure, and too generic to go beyond genus. But a neat addition to this set!

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8. leaf-cutter ant, Acromyrmex sp. Like the honey pot ants, there are too many species of leaf-cutter ants to go further with the ID. Surprisingly, no other (known to me) figures of this group.

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A great set :)

Fantastic set!

Sometimes, our collections look frozen, sometimes our collector partners seem to not share our collecting interestings... sometimes nothing happens. But, patient people is always prised and here is a quite unusual set that @Froggie unearthed. Yes, these figures were released already a long time ago and nobody noticed them before. Obiously, after unearthed, these termites and ants needed to join your collection.

But it's the first time I see them!