The worker ant seemed to be using its mandibles on the base of the plant.

Of course, Messor worker [...]]]> While observing the Messor Pogonomyrmex rugosus nest last week, I noticed one ant working on a seedling that was in a patch of other small plants to one side of the mound. (These are mostly Pectocarya – combseed).

The worker ant seemed to be using its mandibles on the base of the plant.

Of course, Messor worker ants clear plants from the area around the mound.

It makes sense to prevent plants from shading the mound too much. Ants are known to regulate the temperature within the nest via mound architecture.

Wish I had more time to spend observing this activity.

Do you have any ideas what this ant is doing?

The refuse or midden pile was covered with a fluffy material.

The ants apparently have been collecting the seeds of this plant, and discarding the seed coats.

It is a common plant in the Sonoran desert. Do [...]]]> During a quick hike through South Mountain Park in Phoenix, Arizona yesterday, I spotted a Messor Pogonomyrmex rugosus harvester ant mound.

The refuse or midden pile was covered with a fluffy material.

The ants apparently have been collecting the seeds of this plant, and discarding the seed coats.

It is a common plant in the Sonoran desert. Do you know what it is?

The plant is a food source to a range of insects as well as Messor harvester ants, including more than 20 species of bees.

It is the common creosote bush, Larrea tridentata.

The midden piles of harvester ants, as with many other types of ants, are known to improve the nutrient levels in the soil in the immediate area.

Tomorrow I will post more about Messor harvester ants.

Hum, now that I think about it, I wonder if “midden piles” is redundant, because midden is a trash heap. Anyone out there help me out on this?

Edit:  Thanks to Alex Wild for pointing out that these ants were Pogonomyrmex rugosus, not Messor.

Edit: Here’s a photo of Pogonomyrmex rugosus.

For more information, try:

Desert Harvester Ant, Messor pergandei

Dale Ward has some videos of Messor pergandei in action, as well as more information

More about cresote bush and the Zygophyllaceae (caltrop family) at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

The next Diversity in [...]]]> What a great day for carnivals. The Diversity in Science Carnival #7: Black History Month – Broadening STEM Participation at Every Level is up today at Urban Science Adventures. DNLee always does a wonderful job of organizing and promoting this event, and the quality of the posts reflect her hard work. Kudos!

The next Diversity in Science Carnival, in honor of Women’s History Month, will be hosted right here at Wild About Ants. If you are interested in participating, please submit your posts via the carnival submission form by the end of March. Looking forward to hearing from you.

If you are interested in the relationship of ants and blue butterflies, be sure to check Steve Willson’s post about Edward’s Hairstreak Pupa at Blue Jay Barrens. The Blue [...]]]> The February Circus of the Spineless Carnival 48:  The Cabinet of Curiosity is up at Matthew Sarver. The Circus of the Spineless celebrates all kinds of invertebrates.

If you are interested in the relationship of ants and blue butterflies, be sure to check Steve Willson’s post about Edward’s Hairstreak Pupa at Blue Jay Barrens. The Blue Jay Barrens is in southern Ohio.

Any idea what the yellow grape-like objects are hanging from the nest?

The honey ants are the camels of the ant family. They live in dry areas throughout the world, but particularly the deserts of Australia, where food and [...]]]> Honey or honey pot ants is a common name of a number of unrelated species with similar habits.

Any idea what the yellow grape-like objects are hanging from the nest?

The honey ants are the camels of the ant family. They live in dry areas throughout the world, but particularly the deserts of Australia, where food and water may be scarce for long periods of time. To cope, honey ants have unique storage tanks for holding liquids. These storage tanks are special worker ants called repletes.

When times are good and food is abundant, the repletes drink the extra liquid food and swell up like balloons. Then they hang around, literally, from the ceiling of the nest, until times are tough. If the colony runs out of food, the other workers entice the repletes to spit up their reserves to share with the others. Having repletes is kind of like having liquid food in the bank.

Because of their name, honey ants are sometimes mistakenly thought to feed on sweets, but the repletes may also store fluid from animal prey. Dr. Bill Brown used to tell a story about how he and some other scientists were digging up a nest of honey pot ants. Having heard that people in the southwestern United States and Australia eat the swollen repletes filled with honeydew, the other scientists decided to taste a few. Dr. Brown declined however, because he had noticed nearby foraging ants were gathering fluids from dead earthworms.

Sound a bit far fetched? It turns out that when scientists scattered cat food along the banks of cane toad-infested ponds, the meat ants would come to the shore to pick it [...]]]> Researchers recently discovered a way to control cane toads, an introduced pest, in Australia:  put out cat food for the meat ants, Iridomyrmex reburrus.

Sound a bit far fetched? It turns out that when scientists scattered cat food along the banks of cane toad-infested ponds, the meat ants would come to the shore to pick it up. If they encounter young cane toads emerging from the water while foraging there, the meat ants attack. In fact, in the study area 98% of emerging toads were laid into by ants within two minutes of leaving the water.

You might wonder if desirable species of toads meet the same fate. It turns out that other kinds of toads evade meat ants at all costs. Only the cane toads freeze in position long enough to for the meat ants to overwhelm them with their tough jaws.

What’s so bad about cane toads? The cane toads were introduced into Australia in an effort to control another pest in sugar cane (thus the name). Soon is became evident that when carnivorous vertebrates – marsupials, lizards, snakes or crocodiles- tried to eat a cane toad, they would succumb to its toxins. With so many cane toads, the threat to wildlife is a very real one.

Is the idea of using ants to control pests a new one? No, certain ants have been used by humans to control pests for centuries. As far as is known, the ancient Chinese were the first to use ants to protect crops. As long as 1,700 years ago, farmers employed weaver ants to keep caterpillars, stink bugs and small rodents out of their valuable citrus orchards. Today weaver ants are used to control citrus pests in Northern Australia.

The colors of this meat ant specimen photographed by April Nobile (Copyright AntWeb.org, 2000-2009. Licensing: Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Creative Commons License, downloaded from Wikimedia) have faded somewhat. Check out the gorgeous iridescent gaster of photographs of Iridomyrmex reburrus at Myrmecos.net.

Now, I wonder if sprinkling cat food about will keep cats from sitting on my keyboard.

Reference:
Georgia Ward-Fear, Gregory P. Brown and Richard Shine. (2010). Using a native predator (the meat ant, Iridomyrmex reburrus) to reduce the abundance of an invasive species (the cane toad, Bufo marinus) in tropical Australia
Journal of Applied Ecology, early view at journal website.

The exhibits included some metallic casts of ant nests. This is a fire ant mound.  [...]]]> Despite the rain, the ASU Social Insect Expo held at the Desert Botanical Garden was the place to be last night. The room was packed with people of all ages interested in learning more about ants, honey bees and other insects.

The exhibits included some metallic casts of ant nests. This is a fire ant mound.  The casts are produced by pouring liquid aluminum or zinc into actual nests, and then after the metal hardens, digging them out. My husband and I think these would make great sculptures.

Live colonies of numerous species of ants were on display. Although I had no control over the lighting and shot through Plexiglas in some cases, I was able to get some okay photographs. These are two castes of the big-headed ant, Pheidole rhea. I’ll be using some of the others (honey pot ants, leafcutters, and acorn ants) in upcoming posts.

Along with a honey bee demo hive, were exhibits of worker honey bees trained using Pavlov’s conditioning techniques.

Something I hadn’t seen before were videos of live insects under Synchrotron x-ray imaging. Very cool tool!

Overall, it was a lot of fun and good information. Given the obvious success of this event, hopefully there will be more Social Insect Expos in the future.

See more about the x-ray imaging at:

Argonne, University scientists reveal insect respiratory function with X-rays

Mark W. Westneat, Oliver Betz, Richard W. Blob,  Kamel Fezzaa, W. James Cooper, Wah-Keat Lee. Tracheal Respiration in Insects Visualized with Synchrotron X-ray Imaging. Science 24 January 2003: Vol. 299. no. 5606, pp. 558 – 560.

Mark W. Westneat, John J. Socha, and Wah-Keat Lee. (2008). Advances in Biological Structure, Function, and Physiology Using Synchrotron X-Ray Imaging. Annual Review of Physiology. Vol. 70: 119-142.

When an ant colony is ready to branch out, the current queen lays eggs that develop into males or new queens instead of workers. Adult male ants are winged, and have small [...]]]> When I am acting as the “Consult-Ant” and answering questions about ant farms, people are generally interested in finding out more about ant queens.

When an ant colony is ready to branch out, the current queen lays eggs that develop into males or new queens instead of workers. Adult male ants are winged, and have small heads and slender bodies. They can easily be mistaken for wasps.

Newly emerged queens are larger than both males and workers, and have four wings.

When conditions are just right, such as after a summer thundershower, the males and new queens fly from the nest. The whole colony is in a tizzy when this happens. Worker ants gush from the nest entrance and mill around. Winged males and queens climb up on grass stalks, trees, or anything tall in the area.

In many species, the winged queens and males fly to meet with males and queens of the same species of ant from other nests. They enter what is called a mating swarm, a swirling cloud of flying and mating insects.

After mating, the males drop to the ground and soon die. The new queens, the ones that escape being eaten that is, also drop to the ground. The queens quickly pull off their wings by rubbing them between the back of their body and their hind legs, twisting and tugging. Once the wings are off, they quickly hide themselves. Ground-nesting ant queens tunnel into the soil while other types of queens may slip into cracks in the bark of logs or creep under nearby rocks. There a queen makes a safe chamber to start her new colony.

You can tell she’s a queen because of the scars on her trunk (middle section) where her wings were.

The queen will lay eggs that develop into tiny worker ants, and a new colony is born.

Have you ever seen swarming ants?

The theme today for Life Photo Meme at Adventures of a Free Range Urban Primate blog is “reproduction.”

Thank you,

Heather

If you got a standard commercial ant farm, the ants you have are [...]]]> I have an ant question! We just got an ant farm and I think they are soldier ants and they just sit on the surface of the sand all day.  What should I feed them and water them?  Will they ever tunnel?

Thank you,

Heather

If you got a standard commercial ant farm, the ants you have are worker ants. This just means that you don’t have a queen ant. Soldiers are extra big workers, which often perform special tasks.

Usually the type of ants sold with commercial ant farms are harvester ants, because their large size and tendency to tunnel makes them fun to watch. They are also relatively easy to collect.

Have you ever made a sand castle? If so, you have probably found out that if the sand is too dry it simply falls down when you try to build with it. If the sand is too wet, it is like mud and you can’t shape it properly. The sand has to have the right amount of water in it to build a good castle.

Ants have the same requirements. They prefer their sand to be a bit moist. If your sand is too dry or too wet, however, they won’t be able to tunnel in it.

Try adding some water to the farm with an eye dropper. Add a small amount at a time to dampen the sand a bit. Be careful, because too much water and food can make it moldy.

Another reason that ants won’t move around much is if they are too cold. Do you have your ant farm indoors? Is it warm enough for you to visit them without a sweater? If not, you might try moving them to somewhere a bit warmer.

As for food, adult worker ants mostly drink liquids. Mix a bit of honey or sugar with about the same amount of water in a small container. Soak the sweet-water mixture into a bit of paper towel rolled up into a ball or a piece of cotton ball. Make sure it is small enough so it will fit into the opening of the ant farm. Place it on the surface of the sand near the ants. Be sure to change the food often, as it might get moldy and/or dry out.

Please let me know if you still have further questions. You might also be interested in the posts on answers to questions from fourth graders, and the Ant Facts or Fiction quiz.

(Note: As I mentioned previously, I have been the “Consult-Ant” on the Leaping from the Box website. I answer questions about ants and ant farms. From now on I will post the answers here, and when Karen has time she will also post the answers on her site.)