Ants 2020

Martha O'Kennon

The Ants are everywhere and doing what they need to do to stay with us. My favorite is the Hairless Rover Ant (Brachymyrmex depilis). It is known as the Ant that needs to stay on the forest floor - it hasn't got a lot of hairs to protect it.. But in fact every time I've seen one it has been up in the leaves of plants. This one was on Aster. I'd like to publicly thank Steven Wang of iNat for all the interesting side info about the ants and in particular for introducing me to this little yellow Ant. It's only about 1 mm long. (Convert: 3 mm is about an eighth inch.) Second here: This little ant has some very interesting patches of reddish-orange, different from the distribution I expect from the basic genus Camponotus (Sugar and Carpenter Ants). I realized when checking the picture that this ant was acting qua mirror - I was wearing my bright Orange pants out there. Third is one in that genus with a bit of prey.



You'll like this one. This Eastern Black Carpenter Ant has been waiting patiently for the nymphs of the Keeled Treehoppers to hatch from their voluminous egg "farms". They usually stroke the nymphs so that they will exude a sweet drop of "Honeydew", which the ants love. Here is one who, missing the yet-to-hatch nymphs, has apparently stroked the Mother Hopper, so that she has offered the Ant a large drop of her own honeydew. In picture 3, the Ant drinks its reward.



Yesterday, June 30, I was out shooting the life of a colony of Entylia carinata (Keeled Treehoppers) in a big Thistle plant in my yard. The hopper eggs had only hatched a few days ago and usually there will be a few Eastern Black Carpenters looking for nymphs to nanny. But yesterday, guess what I found running around in one of the nurseries with the tiny nymphs.



A couple more.



I don't have a tripod but I did get a few seconds of film clip showing a couple of Rovers interacting with each other and nymphs.

I don't have a tripod but I did get a few seconds of film clip showing a couple of Rovers interacting with each other and nymphs.

I don't have a tripod but I did get a few seconds of film clip showing a couple of Rovers interacting with each other and nymphs.

Here's a little maybe 3 mm black ant - looks like a tiny carpenter - that ran when I came to photo-shoot chez les treehoppers.



Blog June 28, 2020

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