Leafcutter ant

“ Still, although the ants of the old world are chiefly carnivorous, or feed on soft substances, and in consequence have not the least idea of hoarding food for the winter, there is one species of Brazilian ant which absolutely builds houses, prepares ground, sows seed, reaps the grain, and stores it away for future consumption. It is the Agricultural Ant, Atta malefaciens, first described by Dr. Lincecum, who watched the insect for twelve years before publishing an account that he knew would at first be received with incredulity. ”

“ Young ants, like young people, wish to set up for themselves in new homes. They spread their fine wings. Off they fly! Since there is not room in the old hill they will build a new one.
They swarm as the bees do. As they rise high from the earth, they drift off on the wind. Very many of them tire out and die, or are blown into the water, and are drowned. A few live and settle on places fit for a new ant-hill.
It is the mother or queen ant who chooses the new home. When she has found the right place, what do you think she does? She takes off her wings, as she does not care to fly any more. ”

“ When an ant finds one sufficiently advanced, it bites the small point of attachment; then, bending down the fruit-like body, it breaks it off and bears it away in triumph to the nest. All the fruit-like bodies do not ripen at once, but successively, so that the ants are kept about the young leaf for some time after it unfolds. Thus the young leaf is always guarded by the ants; and no caterpillar or larger animal could attempt to injure them without being attacked by the little warriors. The fruit-like bodies are about one-twelfth of an inch long, and are about one-third of the size of the ants ”

“ During summer I have seen him on the edge of snowfields and glaciers consuming thousands of unfortunate grasshoppers, flies, and other insects there accumulated. He is particularly fond of ants—tears ant hills to pieces and licks up the ants as they come storming forth to bite him. He tears hundreds of rotten logs and stumps to pieces for grubs, ants and their eggs. He freely eats honey, the bees and their nests. He often amuses himself and makes a most amusing and man-like spectacle by chasing and catching grasshoppers. ”

“ They perform a most important part in the economy of nature by burying vegetable matter as quickly beneath the soil as the ferocious red ant does dead animal substances. The white ant keeps generally out of sight, and works under galleries constructed by night to screen them from the observation of birds. At some given signal, however, I never could ascertain what, they rush out by hundreds, and the sound of their mandibles cutting grass into lengths may be heard like a gentle wind murmuring through the leaves of the trees. ”

“ Occasionally one or two may be detected carrying a dead insect, or crushed land-shell, the corolla of a flower, a fragment of stick, or leaf, but I have never seen aphides brought in to the nest or visited by this ant or by Atta structor.
It sometimes happens that an ant has manifestly made a bad selection, and is told on its return that what it has brought home with much pains is no better than rubbish, and is hustled out of the nest, and forced to throw its burden away. ”

“ The creature lives in the tree-tops and is diurnal in habits. It moves along the branches with great rapidity, either in an upright position or inverted like a sloth, the prehensile tail being used constantly. Ants form the food, and as these ascend even the highest trees, the little ant-eater has a never-failing and abundant supply; they are gathered up hurriedly as the little creature moves quickly along.
One day an army of carnivorous ants invaded our quarters while we were busily occupied preparing the specimens collected during the morning. ”

“ Who can describe the countless myriads of ants which swarm through the forests? Every shrub is full of creeping life, and the decayed vegetation affords harbor for some peculiar kinds of these insects. The large yellow puca-çiçi is seen in multitudes in the open air, and it even penetrates into the dwellings. This insect does not bite, but its crawling creates great irritation to the skin. The small black yana-çiçi, on the contrary, inflicts most painful punctures. A very mischievous species of stinging ant is the black sunchiron. ”

“ Ants in great quantities and of many varieties of size and colour, from the lion ant, an inch long, to the small brown ant, which can insinuate itself into the most minute crevice. These seize upon whatever is eatable, and devour it in a short time. The ground seems alive with white ants, and the trees swarm with them inside and out; every thing here teems with life. ”

“ The other is of the same size, but dingy brown in colour, and with hair of a coarser kind. These little ant-eaters both sleep through the day, curled up in the cavity of a tree, or in some fork of the branches, and only display their activity by night.
Thus it is that the ants have no chance of escaping from their numerous enemies. On the earth they are attacked and destroyed by the great ant-eater, in the trees by his brother with the four curving claws. By day one species preys upon them,—by night, another. Go where they will, there is a foe to fall upon them. ”

“ When, however, the angry insect finds that menace is ineffectual, and that it cannot alarm the foe, it settles the matter by dropping to the ground. If an ant-infested tree be suddenly struck with a stick, the ants tumble down in all directions, falling quite unconcernedly from a height of fourteen or fifteen feet, and rattling like hail upon the dried leaves at the foot of' the tree. When they reach the ground, they lie motionless for a moment, and then pick themselves up and run away as if nothing were the matter. ”

“ But ants destroy timber, infest houses, and cause the spread of aphids that are enemies of garden plants; therefore the ant’s destroyer, the flicker, is a neighborhood benefactor and deserves our heartfelt protection. Professor Beal reports finding 3,000 ants in the stomach of each of two flickers and fully 5,000 in that of another. [72] These insects form almost half of this bird’s food. His long, sticky tongue is especially adapted to their capture. He likes grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, and caterpillars, and while he enjoys fruit, he takes little that is of any value to man. ”

“ When the piece is nearly cut off, it is still stationed upon it, and it looks as though it would fall to the ground with it; but, on being finally detached, the ant is generally found to have hold of the leaf with one foot, and soon righting itself, and arranging its burden to its satisfaction, it sets off at once on its return. Following it again, it is seen to join a throng of others, each laden like itself, and, without a moment's delay, it hurries along the well-worn path. ”

“ They are furnished with incalculable powers of increase, and, to prevent their too great excess, other animals have been created to prey on them. The chief creature engaged in that work is this most extraordinary denizen of the forest—the ant-bear, or great ant-eater (Myrmecophaga jubata) , called also the tamanoir. It often measures, from the tip of its snout to the extremity of its tail, eight feet; and though it seems wonderful that so large an animal should be able to subsist solely on such minute insects, yet, from the formation of its mouth, it is unable to consume any other. ”

“ Having tipped its load over the rim of the funnel, the ant disengages itself and attempts to crawl up the incline and get to the other side of the spider to pull it out again. But the loose soil particles offer little traction and the ant begins to slip. Frantic, it works its legs faster, making it slide downward more quickly. Alerted now by vibrations from the struggling insect, a hidden antlion waits its moment to strike. When the ant touches bottom, the hooked jaws appear, snapping once, twice, and finally closing shut about the thorax of its prey. ”

“ Not only all kinds of ants, and other insects, but birds, and carnivorous reptiles, are upon the hunt for them, and the inhabitants of many countries eat them.
From one of the most active, industrious, and rapacious; from one of the most fierce and implacable little animals in the world, they are in this state changed into an innocent helpless insect, incapable of making the least resistance to the smallest ant. The ants are to be seen on every side in infinite numbers, of various species and sizes, dragging these annual victims to their different nests. ”

“ Some build their nests of clay in trees, and others hollow out abodes under the bark. They vary, too, in size and form. Some are half an inch long; some white, others red and black; some sting furiously. The ants inhabiting trees are those which commit depredations in houses chiefly. The most annoying of the species is the fire-ant—a little creature of a shining reddish colour. They live in the sand, where they form subterranean galleries covered by a sandy dome. They enter houses, and attack eatables of all sorts. ”

“ Its head, flat and square, is armed with two moveable crooked horns, whose singular structure shews how admirable Nature is, even in the least of her works.
This insect is the most subtle and dangerous enemy the ant has; the plans which he forms to ensnare his prey, are very ingenious. He mines a portion of land in the form of a funnel, at the bottom of which he waits to seize the ants, which coming by chance to the edge of the precipice, are thence hurried down to their merciless foe. ”

“ The ant is even more annoying than the mosquito, for while the former does most of its prowling at night, the latter "improves each shining hour." If the natives play the sluggard, it is because they refuse to profit by the example of industry which the ant ever presents to them. ”

“ By stroking the aphides with their antennæ they cause them to emit the sweet fluid, which the ants then greedily sip up. Various other insects are looked after by ants in a similar manner, or are found in their nests. It has been observed that some species, like the European Red Ant (Formīca sanguinĕa) , resort to violence to obtain working ants of other species for their own use, plundering the nests of suitable kinds of their larvæ and pupæ, which they carry off to their own nests to be carefully reared and kept as slaves. ”

“ They destroy many noxious insects and reptiles. The severity of their attack is greatly increased by their vast numbers, and rats, mice, lizards, and even the 'Python natalensis', when in a state of surfeit from recent feeding, fall victims to their fierce onslaught. These ants never make hills like the white ant. Their nests are but a short distance beneath the soil, which has the soft appearance of the abodes of ants in England. ”

“ Ants surely are wiser than some men, for they learn by experience. They have established themselves even on these plains, where water stands so long annually as to allow the lotus, and other aqueous plants, to come to maturity. When all the ant horizon is submerged a foot deep, they manage to exist by ascending to little houses built of black tenacious loam on stalks of grass, and placed higher than the line of inundation. ”

“ Those in which the foliage was especially attractive to these enemies were soon weeded out unless variations occurred which tended to preserve them. Hence the curious phenomenon of insects specially attracted to certain plants to protect them from other insects; and the existence of the destructive leaf-cutting ant in America will thus explain why these specially modified plants are so much more abundant there than in the Old World, where no ants with equally destructive habits appear to exist. ”

“ The ant that is attacked is a very cowardly species, and never shows fight. I often found it running about sipping at the glands of leaves, or milking aphides, leaf-hoppers, or scale-insects that it found unattended by other ants. On the approach of another, though of a much smaller species, it would immediately run away. Probably this cowardly and un-antly disposition has caused it to become the prey of the Eciton. At any rate, I never saw the Ecitons attack the nest of other species. ”

“ Each ant knows every other citizen of its own town, and an ant from any other town is immediately recognised as a foreigner. Ants have their overseers of industrial enterprises, and regular hours for work and sleep. The ant is the most pugnacious of all animals, and the most muscular compared with its size. It will boldly attack the biggest creature that walks if this creature invades its home. It will fasten its mandibles into an enemy, and allow itself to be torn to pieces without relaxing its hold. Among some savage tribes, certain species of ants are said to be used as surgeons. ”

“ Green ants do disfigure orange and mango trees with their "nests," and they have the temper of furies; but they wage war on many of the insects which bother plants, and clear away insect carrion, and carrion, in fact, of all sorts. This ant, to which has been given the official title of "emerald-coloured leaf dweller," constructs a pocket with leaves of living trees (and, very rarely, of the blades of living grass) , and dwelling therein establishes populous colonies. ”

“ When winter comes the other ants are fed by these honey-bearers, which give put the stored-up honey from their mouths drop by drop.
There is an interesting class of underground insects which, in their early stages, hide in especially dug pits and lie in wait for their prey, but which, when full grown, live above ground. Such are the ant-lions and the tiger-beetles. The young ant-lion is a heavy-bodied, clumsy-looking creature, with very long and sharp jaws, which digs for itself a funnel-shaped pit in loose, dry sand, using its flat head and jaws as a spade in digging. ”