[ExI] ants again

spike spike66 at att.net
Tue Jul 1 05:20:50 UTC 2008


OK here's a kick in the pants.  Please someone check my line of reasoning.
 
My fruit trees were infested with aphid-farmer ants, so I put a sticky
barrier ring around the base.  A few ants ventured into the goo, became...
gooed, but the others apparently saw and did not follow, so the ants on the
ground were stuck on the ground and the ants in the tree were stranded in
the tree.  The tree was heavily infested, with perhaps ten thousand ants,
and even more aphids.  
 
So yesterday I noticed that the ants were milling about on the tree, but
that they appeared to have forgotten their aphid flocks.  Most of the aphids
appeared untended.
 
Today I noticed something even more curious.  Most of the ants were gone!
Still skerjillions of them on the ground milling about, but the trees had
only perhaps 10 to 20 percent of the original number.  So all I can figure
is that ants apparently fall out of their trees.  I don't know where else or
how else they would be going?  Ideas?
 
If they routinely fall out of the trees upon which they farm, and just go
around and climb back up, and if now they cannot get back up, and 80 to 90
percent are gone after two days, then it is close enough first order
estimate that any given ant falls from the tree about once a day on average
or slightly more often.  
 
Did anyone here know, or did you ever observe ants falling from trees?
Perhaps we just weren't setting up the experiment correctly, or it is too
difficult to see ants falling from trees.  If an ant falls an average of
about once a day, and I set up a piece of white cardboard under the tree on
a platform that disallows ants from coming up from below, I should be able
to observe an ant falling upon the cardboard at a rate of a couple per
minute, ja? 
 
I always assumed that the ants protect the aphids.  So what if now the ants
fall out of the tree, but the aphids don't?  Would I expect to see big mean
ladybugs show up and begin to devour the unprotected aphids?  Or would the
ladybugs just assume the presence of ants and go elsewhere?  Any ideas? 
 
Granted the extropic angle of this particular topic is tenuous at best, so
feel free to reply offlist if this interests you, or post here until the
drones start to complain.  
 
spike
 
 
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