World of Ants
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A rainforest is an area of tall, mostly evergreen trees and a high amount of rainfall. Rainforests are Earth’s oldest living ecosystems, with some surviving in their present form for at least 70 million years. They are incredibly diverse and complex, home to more than half of the world’s plant and animal species—even though they cover just 6% of Earth’s surface. This makes rainforests astoundingly dense with flora and fauna. Rainforests’ rich biodiversity is incredibly important to our well-being and the well-being of our planet.
Weaver ants moving a dead millipede.
Wikipedia: Weaver ants or green ants (genus Oecophylla) are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae (order Hymenoptera). Weaver ants live in trees (they are obligately arboreal) and are known for their unique nest building behavior where workers construct nests by weaving together leaves using larval silk. Colonies can be extremely large consisting of more than a hundred nests spanning numerous trees and containing more than half a million workers. Like many other ant species, weaver ants prey on small insects and supplement their diet with carbohydrate-rich honeydew excreted by small insects (Hemiptera). Weaver ant workers exhibit a clear bimodal size distribution, with almost no overlap between the size of the minor and major workers. The major workers are approximately 8–10 mm (0.31–0.39 in) in length and the minors approximately half the length of the majors. Major workers forage, defend, maintain, and expand the colony whereas minor workers tend to stay within the nests where they care for the brood and 'milk' scale insects in or close to the nests.
Weaver ants vary in color from reddish to yellowish brown dependent on the species. Oecophylla smaragdina found in Australia often have bright green gasters. Weaver ants are highly territorial and workers aggressively defend their territories against intruders. Because they prey on insects harmful to their host trees, weaver ants are sometime used by indigenous farmers, particularly in southeast Asia, as natural biocontrol agents against agricultural pests. Although weaver ants lack a functional sting they can inflict painful bites and often spray formic acid directly at the bite wound resulting in intense discomfort.
Ants touch each other with their antennae when they meet. Each ant colony has a unique smell, so members recognize each other and sniff out intruders.
The peony flower is the perfect place for shooting ants.You can always find them there and they are not as fast as usual.
Be well and safe.
Thank you for taking the time to look.
By David Rogers
American B. 1960
Weight: 725 lbs.
Materials- Body: Bent Willow on Armature
Eyes: Carved Red Cedar
Ant. Photographed in Maryland.
A focus stack of 5 images, shot with the camera hand held. Canon 80D, Canon MPE lens, Canon twin flash, Aperture f/11, shutter speed 1/250, ISO 400.
Canon EOS 5D Mark II Laowa 25mm f28-2,5x5x Macro Lens © 2022 Klaus Ficker. Photos are copyrighted. All rights reserved. Pictures can not be used without explicit permission by the creator.
Zorzal-hormiguero Meridional, Ant-eating Chat, Myrmecocichla formicivora.
Etosha National Park
Namibia
I'm not sure what's going on here. These two ants were on the fence at Conowingo Dam in Maryland yesterday 7/26/23. I didn't see any signs of aggression. It looked like they were feeding each other but I didn't see any food. Maybe they were just being gross and making out in public.
After releasing the Vine weevil it was immediately attacked by this Ant,
I removed the ant quickly but not before i took a few snaps
Glad you can make out his one tooth
Some more experimenting with focus stacking of a black ant under my Nikon Labophot-2 microscope. Approximately 64 images were focus stacked together in Helicon Focus to create this image. The ant was photographed under side light with a 4x objective. I was impressed by how much fine detail was captured, especially in the eye, leg and antenna.
Macro Mondays: Reflection
Little wire & beads Green Ant from the Northern Territory, Australia. The 'real' thing builds a nest of leaves in the trees & is edible: ascorpic acid instead of formic acid.
I borrowed my wifes (Unda J.M) Macro lens for this Ant running along the top of a moss covered wall, carrying what looks like someones old skin?