A wolf in the flock!
My Girlfriend took these next four pictures with her fantastic new camera. Amazing macro pictures!
A worker ant tends its flock of aphids. I watched them moving aphids around to better spots on the plant were the feeding was better. The better the spot the more sweeter the liquid they produce.
Mean while back at the Black ant colony, herds of tiny aphids are being shepherded and milked by their black ant guardians. The ants stimulate the feeding aphids with their antennae, which in turn makes the aphid release a drop of sweet liquid. The ants greedily gobble these up and grow very fat on the sweet nectar. In return the ants protect the feeding pests from their predator's, namely lady birds and their larvae.
My rescued Tad poles are growing fast and looking more like frogs every day. It won't be long now before they are hopping the nest.
This type of Long horned Beetle is a excellent wasp mimic and uses it's disguise to fool predators. It is searching for a good place to lay it's eggs in an old tree.
A bad photo, but proof of all out war in the garden. A Black ant is carried away to feed the ever growing numbers of Red invaders.
The snail is cut into tiny pieces and transported back to the nest in the flower bed.
A large soldier ant cleans his antennae after feeding on the snail carcass.
I don't mind the useful Black Ants, it's these stinging Reds that make a trip to the garden a painful one. They have been taking over large areas of Black Ant territory this year and a full on turf war is in progress across the whole garden.
