SUMMER ADVENTURES - Episode 23 – ANT'S WORK
Like most children, I think ... once upon a time ... I was easily hypnotized by watching the ants in their daily activities, like in some captivating entomological reality show ... had I experienced those kinds of videogames back then, I would say that is very similar to watching an isometric strategy game that's been played automatically or by some computer...
... and in that sense, I never grew up ...
... When I take a look at ant's work I'm in the same mental place and my reactions are the same as then.
Only now I have the camera, so I can get even more from the experience ...
... more fun ... more interactivity ... and some pictures ...
... like these ones ...
... with ants transporting various dry seeds...
... and one of them transporting the wing of a small green moth.
( You can enlarge this photograph, if you wish )
Some of the most interesting scenes ...
... at least for me ...
... are scenes of this type ...
... involving ...
... aphids ...
... they are a common sight on many various plants ...
... and ...
... sometimes ...
... hm ... sometimes ... pretty often, actually ...
( ... this one is enlargeable by clicking :)...)
... you can see ants carefully shepherding the aphids ...
... protecting them from many predators ... and some parasites ... and stimulating them with the antennae to excrete the sugary fluid, the perfect ant food ...
... I photographed this pretty big black ants in mid-July on the open meadow near the sea ...
... and a few meters from this group of plants,aphids&ants ...
... were these, much smaller ants ... just slightly bigger than the aphids in their care ...
... doing the same work ...
... sometimes I come across these colorful little ants with the redhead, working with a heard of lovely colored blueish aphids ...
( Enleargeable for better view )
... although ...
( Warning! :D Enlargeable! )
... I usually see this species ...
... more often ...
( If you click on this photograph ... well ... just try and you'll see ... )
... on meatier things ...
... things like ...
( ...mhm...yap...enlargeable...click click ... )
... this ...
... a dead snake on the forest floor ...
... these ants are often found on the carcasses of the small animals ...
... cutting and dismanteling the bodies ...
( Another enlargeable one )
... sometimes I see bigger species walking on carcasses ... like here, in this little dtube video ... a large group of ants are working on a small dead shrew ...
Ants transporting the small carcass of a shrew
▶️ DTube
▶️ IPFS
Besides on the carcasses, I very often see those redheaded ants, running around the acorns ...
... only this summer, I took a good up-close look at what they are doing ...
... and I saw them shepherding some sort of really minuscule, well-camouflaged aphids ...
... that I never noticed before ...
... and talking about minuscule ... the nectar collecting ants on these two photographs ...
... are small as fleas ... you can barely tell these are ants without a good magnification...
... another minuscule amber species ...
... I found them on the desolate macro landscape on the barren rocks near the sea ...
... they were busy extracting the minuscule seeds ...
... from a small hairy seed pod ...
... sometimes you can see ants with some caterpillars, in relationships similar to those with aphids ... like on this photograph ...
... and now ...
... with this ant dragging his heavy load on a dusty road ...
... is time to end these few little vignettes about ants at work ...
( As always in these posts on Steemit, all the photographs ... and the video ... are my work )
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Thank you for the lovely cake :)
This post has been manually curated by PhotoStream: The Photography Tribe!
Thank you :)
I have no words, just wow!
:) Thanks. It's a mix of photographs made with various lens and cameras through the last 10 years or so.
would you like to talk about it in a post of your equipment? I think it can be very interesting
Cool idea... never thought about an equipment post ... I think I will :) during the winter
Please do. I think folks over at STEMGeeks (the STEM tribe) would love to see a #technology post coming from you.
:)
Oh my god, those pictures are amazing! :O
Thanks :)