Sunday, June 12, 2011

All Out Turf War

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.

4 comments:

Starkadder said...

Do you have a species name for the red ants? I don't know much about English ants. We have over a dozen different Australian species on our small property.

Secundus said...

We have four species of ant over here. The Black, Red , Meadow and Wood ant. Wood ants are the biggest but are very rare in gardens, they prefer the forest and make huge castles out of pine needles. Red ants have a nasty sting so are the least favoured of all the garen types. They can be a real pain in the arse...

Secundus said...

Mind you I count myself lucky we don't have Fire ants over here! yet...

Starkadder said...

I agree. They've established themselves in four houses in Brisbane. The Queensland authorities have been waging all-out war against them but once they get a toehold...

The most common species on the properties are camponotus (sugar ants), iridomyrmex (meat ants), myrmecia (bull ants) and polyrhachis (crazy ants). There are several others, particularly LBAs -little black ants- who can't be identified without a 50x microscope. I'll dig out some pictures if you like!