Eciton
genus of insects
Eciton is a New World army ant genus that contains the most familiar species of army ants. The most predominant and well-known species is Eciton burchellii, which is also more commonly known as "Balichana" in the Colombian Caribbean Coast, but also as the army ant and is considered the type species.
Eciton burchellii and Eciton hamatum are the most visible and best studied of the New World army ants because they forage above ground and during the day, in enormous raiding swarms. Their range stretches from southern Mexico to the northern part of Argentina.
Life cycle
Eciton army ants have a bi-phasic lifestyle in which they alternate between a nomadic phase and a statary phase. In the statary phase, which lasts about three weeks, the ants remain in the same location every night. They arrange their own living bodies into a nest, protecting the queen and her eggs in the middle. Such a temporary home is called a "bivouac". In the nomadic phase the ants move their entire colony to a new location nearly every night for about two weeks on end. During said phase, the queen does not lay eggs.
“Eciton” enters the record as genus of insects. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Eciton, genus and insects can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Eciton” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Eciton, genus and insects provides the most credible route into that argument.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1932529. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Current terminology should not be projected backward without checking the classification used when the underlying evidence was created. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Eciton” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.