Monday, April 28, 2014

Leaf Cutter Ants Going into their Den

Yesterday's photo showed a photo of a hole in the trough in the grass.  This is a closer view of the hole.  It reveals that the hole was not made by a rodent, but by leaf cutter ants.  They were carrying a steady stream of leaves down the whole.

As I have mentioned before, leaf cutter ants choose only certain types of leaves, not to eat them, but to feed the leaves to a fungus underground so that the ants can eat the fungus.

There was not a lot of light at the entrance to the hole, as it was very late in the afternoon.  This photo is therefore not the best, but I decided to take matters into my own hands, as I will show you tomorrow.

This week we have photos of the architecture of Portugal posted on our Viva la Voyage travel photo site.
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6 comments:

  1. glendaApril 28, 2014 at 6:18 AM

    Here is a whole community beneath our feet. Very interesting.

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  2. SharonApril 28, 2014 at 6:29 AM

    Such enterprising little creatures.

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  3. JudyApril 28, 2014 at 7:24 AM

    Ants are such busy little things. Always going somewhere. We don't have leaf cutter ants here. Just those nasty little red ants.

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  4. LindaApril 28, 2014 at 8:50 AM

    Fascinating.

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  5. Bob CroweApril 28, 2014 at 7:15 PM

    I have a strong memory of a line of these critters marching across a beam of wood near Monteverde, so orderly, such labor. However, I did not know that they build underground nests.

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  6. KateApril 29, 2014 at 5:14 AM

    Maxing the photo is a good way to see this colony of ants!

    ReplyDelete