Honeypot ant

[4][5] The abdomen of species like Camponotus inflatus consists of hard dorsal sclerites (stiff plates) connected by a softer, more flexible arthrodial membrane.

Plerergates can live anywhere in the nest, but in the wild, they are found deep underground, unable to move, swollen to the size of grapes.

The workers went out foraging during daylight to collect nectar from Mulga nectaries, and meat from the carcass of a Tiliqua blue-tongued lizard.

These people scrape the surface to locate the ants' vertical tunnels, and then dig as much as two metres deep to find the honeypots.

[11] Papunya, in Australia's Northern Territory, is named after a honey ant creation story, or Dreaming, which belongs to the people there, such as the Warlpiri.

A Sydney University study has investigated the efficacy of honey from Camponotus inflatus, and found it effective against the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, and the fungi Aspergillus and Cryptococcus.

Myrmecocystus honeypot ants, showing the repletes or plerergates, their abdomens swollen to store honey, above ordinary workers
Honeypot ants compared to a human hand. The dark dorsal sclerites are widely separated by the stretched arthrodial membrane of the inflated abdomen of each replete.
Digging for honey ants