golden ants

[planthelper]

a few weeks ago i looked at some of my caapi's and saw they had an infestation of those black amphids.

over the next few day's there nummbers increased, and i was mentaly preparing myselfe, to bloody get rid of them, better sooner than later.

but stragly over the following periode, the amphids totaly disapeared, and i often observed, a single ant with a golden bottom patroling the plants. so i speculate, this particular ant steals amphids for living, and as such might be very benefical in horticulture.

does anybody know the ant, i'm talking about? has my observation any merits?

the ants which i have observed farming the amphids are much smaller and act in groups, but the golden ant is a single operator.

would be nice to have some ants, protecting our plants, hey!

[Amazonian]

I think Honeydew ( sugary liquid secreted by aphids ) is the reason that ants are associated with aphids. Many species of ants are so addicted to this sweet drink that they will protect the aphids from various predators and move them to new plants if the one they are on starts to wilt. Lady bugs and their larvae love to eat aphids .

Edited July 30, 2010 by Amazonian

[mr me]

I think Amazonian is right. There are species of ants that farm aphids, so the ants simply might have been moved them elsewhere.

[ThunderIdeal]

i dunno if the ant in question farms aphids, i didn't think it did. maybe it does just take them for food. or maybe it farms them and stole them off of your plant to farm them on another plant.

[Amazonian]

 

 

[planthelper]

this ant just patrols the plants, moving fast and seemlingly looking for amphids.

it never stopps for long, and the behavior it totaly different to those ants who farm amphids.

the amphid farming ants come in large groups, and you can watch them milking and handling the amphids, but this golden ant never has this behaviour.

sometime you can get lucky and a premantis keeps your plants healthy, they are my favorites as they are perfect dmt creatures, and one can watch them hunting down other insects.

ladybirds have a big appetite aswell and certainly make a big difference in horticulture,

anyway, the older i get, i find some things more exciting than befor.

[ThunderIdeal]

place an aphid in the ant's path, see what it does.

[Amazonian]

Interesting. Why not follow this guy and see where he takes the aphid. Just to see if he goes to another plant or to a burrow. I would be interested in the result.

[planthelper]

preety much what you suggested, i did yesterday.

the golden ant, is aswell an aphid farmer i found out, but it seems she is a bit more carfull and her flock of aphids is small and will not harm the plant.

at one occasion, the golden ant ran into the black small ant which is probably the owner of those aphids, and once she noticed her, seemigly chased her, but she took a detour onto a leaf, and the stupid golden ant ran straight, and lost her right away.

i'm pressed for time atm, so i will post more later, but let me say,

yesterday, for the first time, i saw an insect taking a drink from the caapi sucker discs,

guess, who knows how to get a lemonade from a caapi, yep, the golden ant!

[Magicdirt]

Ants are amzing little creatures.

One time I noticed two colonies of small black ants living a few metres from each other and I wondered what would happen if their paths crossed as they never seemed to go near each other.

I started feeding the both colonies breadcrumbs and when they got a taste for them I made a trail of bread crumbs from the colony with the smallest ants colony with the larger ants.

As soon as the colonies made contact a battle ensued.

The larger ants quickly gained the upper hand on day 1 and the smaller ants seemed to have been defeated.

The next day the smaller ants sent raiding parties which were quickly dealt with by the larger ants. It seemed to be a last ditch effort in the battle for territory/food.

On day three smaller ants started emerging from inside the larger ants nest carrying food back to their nest, it seemed like the surface raiding parties were sacrificed as a diversion while the real raid was about to commence underground.

It seems like ants a capable of higher logic of some sort ie the devised a battle plan complete with diversionary tactics. This seemed to show foresight the ability to make decisions based on the final outcome rather than just the battle at hand.

I've often wondered if this was some form of group intelligence or if it was the work of one or several more intelligent individuals.

I didn't set out with the intent to cause "anticide" but that was the final outcome (unless the losing colony cut their losses and escaped with the queen)

Sorry to hijack your thread PH.

[planthelper]

lovly read, your post magicdirt!