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tipz

caapi ant symbiosis ?

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My caapi vine is powering along for S.A standards. It spent the winter indoors and has since readjusted to the spring climate and is booming. As i was out sitting with my plants earlier, i noticed a steady procession of ants travelling up the trunk and the offshooting vines.

Upon closer inspection i saw they were travelling to the base of each leaf and feeding off a bright yellow dot symetrically placed in the exact same spots of each and every leaf.

This makes it obvious to me the plant is deliberately attracting the ants... maybe as a protection against predators ( of which there are no sign).

I utse on this one and found heaps on ants and caapi but nothing on these yellow spots i speak of. I will get photos tomo if this is uncommon.

sorry if this is a regular noob question.

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Wow very interesting!

Over at the nook Zaka was talking about different varieties of caapi and yellow spots under the leaves

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It's an awesome observation man.

I've found 'inverse' coloured mutations in lady beetles sitting on subs.

'Bone collector' insects, which harvest the dead bodies of other insects from Datura (and wear them like armour)

Aphids gettn high on poppies.. and the list goes on.

To me, it feels like this is as it should be. We interfere when 'our' outcomes are compromised,

but unless u reckon their suckn the life juice right outta it,

seems pretty cool to me.

)

Edited by mud

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Nah... im loving them.

It seems to me the plant loves them too... They can keep doing their thing.

Ill get photos :)

Found this thread on it from 02 just then here

but i have no sign of aphids or plant damaging insects.... just happy ants defending the base :worship:

Edited by tipz
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I have had them ants!!

It even moved from NSW to QLD and got the same ants up there.

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Hmmm... interesting thanks for link tipz.

Down to serious matters. Btotl, what the hell is your avatar meant to be I can't decide whether it's a rabbbit/manikin/old lady/victorian female! It's definitely an interesting peice of art! :huh: (Not in any way derogatory. I just can't figure it out)

Edited by ErraneousHerbalist

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Irie,

As I understand it, the yellow dots are mimicking butterfly eggs.

When the Butterfly see them it will not lay eggs there as it thinks another butterfly has already laid on the leaf.

The ants that feed on the nectar maybe also a defense against real butterfly eggs.

Maybe ants will attack and eat real eggs?

Respect,

Z

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Hrrm. I have noticed this with my caapi as well. I could never put my finger on it, but it definitely seems to attract those little critters. Quite intriguing.

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I for my part am having quite a big problem with ants... many of my plants but specially Argyreia, C. Chinensis, Kratom and Caapi. It started prety much with caapi where lots aphids and black sap started to show all over (and some ants), I whent through the arduous work of cleaning every leaf and stems with tissue paper and alchool (seemed the thing to do at the time... I was ok for a while, but then I came to the conclusion it was the ants spreading aphids everywhere and feeding on the sap. This time while the aphids were no longer the problem it was even worst - cochonilla... wherever there are ants these buggers appear and wherever these buggers are a track of ants show up... they seem to really like it. So for me the symbiose is of a disastrous order...

I whish I didn't need to care about them, but they just seem to carry, spread and grow their own stuff for survival...

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Yeah I have noticed it, tastes slightly sweet like water with a tiny bit of sugar. Anadenaanthera does a similiar thing aswell makes me wonder why?, protection?, pollianation?, never seemed to have adverse effects. Just those tiny black common as muck ants you see everywhere & as quetz mentions I have seen the same ants with a reltionship between cochinilla & acacia.

Are your plants indoors or outdoors Quetz.

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the ants found on the caapi i mentioned weren't just common black ants.

They were bigger and had yellow markings. Doing no harm that i know of.

@Erraneous

My avatar is a mix between victorian lady and myself. ha!

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http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29660&st=0&p=327796&fromsearch=1entry327796

we just recently discussed this nectar glands, briefly.

the glands attract ants, and the ants, stopp every animal (including humans) from raiding the plant to much.

aswell the colony would provide a lot of gardening and fertilizing work for the plant.

funny thing is, viridis has a similar thing, called domatias.

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It is magickal :worship:

Especially if it serves a double purpose of fooling butterflys to lay their eggs elsewhere ( as zaka suggested ) - as well as feeding its own little personal army.

Plants never cease to amaze me... think i might go back to sit with her again... maybe even have a nibble :innocent_n:

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The ants often do farm sap sucking insects. I find I get a lot of the black scale type insects on my caapi and other plants put there by the ants.

The glands in question are called extrafloral nectaries. Many plants have them.

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this topic made me check out my caapi, which is located in my garden under 80% shade...

and noticed the same, as somebody pointed out earlier, the extrafloral nectaries, are located in a very similar pattern at different leaves. my caapi is said to be a cielo, i wonder if all cielo clones have a similar pattern?

i guess, stable caapi seeds, might even produce, the same pattern aswell, that would be amazing.

i don't have a caapi, close to my decking area,(where i spend most of my time, and make most obsevations)

but i will change this, so i can observe closer which insects visit this vine.

i have seen ants farming aphids, on caapi, but i can't recall ever have seen, an insect of any kind taking care of the nectar glands.

one needs glasses and/or a magnifying glass to closly inspect, for nectar glands, amphids, mealies and alike.

maybe the right insects don't excist in australia, to utilise those glands, however very often, we do have equivalent insects in australia.

what i mean is, very often when we get a new and rare plant, we can suddenly observe insects, we have hardly ever seen before.

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Last year I was in dialogue whith a the brazilian gardener behind South american specials... I lost track of him meanwhile but he had lots of interesting things to say about Caapi and Psychotria. One can find some stuff on other forums (check). I was/ am very interested about all the folcore/ tradition behind the different strain variants but little info is available. I can't find it anymore but I remember he had an interesting post somewhere identifying arround 3 different Caapi strains just by looking at those yellow nectar glands - They can serve as strong identification traits, Some species showed leaves with 4, while others with 2 and had different distributions.

It would be so nice to compile all the identification traits of the different caapis, including taxonomy/ wood section/ Leaves/ flowers/ seeds/ plus traditional uses and folklore... But there are a lot of mixed up info and observations out there...

Early this weak I got some seeds from AJ - One "Caapi" Tagged as B. Muricata white has the most bad ass seeds (caapiwise) I've ever seen (I should have put a finger next to it to get the scale...).

post-9414-0-92297900-1321576608_thumb.jp

post-9414-0-92297900-1321576608_thumb.jpg

post-9414-0-92297900-1321576608_thumb.jpg

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I can't find it anymore but I remember he had an interesting post somewhere identifying arround 3 different Caapi strains just by looking at those yellow nectar glands - They can serve as strong identification traits,

 

i started taking photos of the glands....

would be nice to have conclusive pics of all caapi strains, regarding the extrafloral nectaries , id ing would be a breeze than.

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im not sure, just putting it out there. but some plants in SA try to attract certain species of ants, such as fire ants, to help protect from other things like leaf cutters. Just putting it out there.

That said, i do see ants farming mealy on caapi, so its certainly not all beneficial.

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Here is a quote from a peruvian grower (i found this quote on the spiritplants forum, i think it was a grower from Pucallpa):

"o.k the spots remain always there, when is red caapi the spots look kind of orange when is black caapi it looks yellow but you can tell the difference from the vine shape and color.

i've been searching the properties of the madre aya for  many years.

if you have any doubt guys just ask me, caapi will always present the spots."

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When I was in Peru I was reading a bit on the web about ants who live around psychotria and that they are also eaten. I asked a friended shaman and she told me this exists. I had some people looking for the ants in the jungle for me, but they got bitten and said 'screw this, we're going home' .. I never got my ants

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When I was in Peru I was reading a bit on the web about ants who live around psychotria and that they are also eaten. I asked a friended shaman and she told me this exists. I had some people looking for the ants in the jungle for me, but they got bitten and said 'screw this, we're going home' .. I never got my ants

 

do these ants make little black cone shaped pods on the underside of the stems???

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Tobacco water applied as a foliar spray works as an effective insecticide for aphids and likely for other sap-suckers as well.

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Bush turkey: no idea

Mycot: yeah, I used that in the past when I still had a garden, I always wondered how long you'd have to wait to consume your herbs becos that shit is pretty toxic.

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