Are common house ants cannibals?
Donita Luddington
A huge trail of ants (many hundreds) was on my kitchen counter last night
so I sprayed them with vinnegar (I was out of windex so I used vinnegar
instead). Being late, and wishing the vinnegar to discourage new foragers,
I retired for the evening.
Much to my chagrin, another, even larger swarm of Argentine ants had taken
over my counter top, this morning - and the dead ants seem to have
disappeared. I was surprised.
So, I sprayed 'em again and left the area for a while. Sure enough, yet
another swarm replaced the second, and I noticed some carrying away the
dead bodies of their camerades.
My question..... Are ants cannibals or did the inadvertant pickling entice
them to cannibalism?
mjcic...@gmail.com
In my experience they are cannibals. I have seen them eat horn worms,
crickets and a snake. Let me say for the record all of these were
Outside, not inside.
MJ
RicodJour
Sure, they'll eat any old dead bug.
Stop spraying and get some ant traps with the poison they take back to
their nests, and put down some boric acid powder such as Terro
http://www.terro.com/antdust.php . It's the best way to control them.
R
dadiOH
They were carrying off their fallen comrades in order to give them a proper
burial and memorial service. No flowers please...
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> They were carrying off their fallen comrades in order to give them a proper
> burial and memorial service. No flowers please...
I was sorry I didn't get see the obituary announcement. Is there a
memorial established somewhere for contributions?
--
Red Green
news:wex9wkbjvadg.y9x4yss3ypyg$.d...@40tude.net:
Something to be learned here? Maybe ants marinated with vinegar taste good?
z
sure. E.O. Wilson, the Harvard bug expert, said that if ants ever
discovered the nuclear bomb, they would end all life on earth.
henrypenta
dont be silly, if they were there wouldn't be but 1 left, henry
HeyBub
Your ants are either omnivores or carried away the bodies of their loved
ones for proper Christian burials.
I say this because cremation is probably not an option for an ant.
mm
wrote:
>
>> My question..... Are ants cannibals or did the inadvertant pickling
>> entice them to cannibalism?
>
>Your ants are either omnivores or carried away the bodies of their loved
>ones for proper Christian burials.
>
>I say this because cremation is probably not an option for an ant.
I don't know about most ants, but in the tropics, like Costa Rica,
there are leaf-cutter ants, that cut little crescents out of leaves,
bring the pieces back to the hill and feed them to the fungus that
they cultivate. As the fungus grows, they eat some of it, take the
waste out of the hill and pile it outside. Amazingly complicated I
think.
Father Haskell
> Donita Luddington wrote:
> > Are ants cannibals?
>
> > A huge trail of ants (many hundreds) was on my kitchen counter last
> > night so I sprayed them with vinnegar (I was out of windex so I used
> > vinnegar instead). Being late, and wishing the vinnegar to discourage
> > new foragers, I retired for the evening.
>
> > Much to my chagrin, another, even larger swarm of Argentine ants had
> > taken over my counter top, this morning - and the dead ants seem to
> > have disappeared. I was surprised.
>
> > So, I sprayed 'em again and left the area for a while. Sure enough,
> > yet another swarm replaced the second, and I noticed some carrying
> > away the dead bodies of their camerades.
>
> > My question..... Are ants cannibals or did the inadvertant pickling
> > entice them to cannibalism?
>
> They were carrying off their fallen comrades in order to give them a proper
> burial and memorial service.
To the fabled Ants' Graveyard.
> No flowers please...
They're jewish?
Dave Bugg
Only those who are circumcised.
--
Dave
What is best in life? "To crush your enemies, see them driven before
you, and to hear the lamentation of the women." -- Conan
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
dadiOH
No, they'd just prefer donations to the UAAVF (United Ants Against Vinegar
Fund).
Father Haskell
It is for an eight year old child with a magnifying glass.
Japetus
inside my vegetable garden. Nothing wrong with that. Over the days, I have
lost a few cucumber plants and I didn't know why, when I saw them. Hundreds
of them climbing on the plant, cutting small pieces off the leaf and leaving
at the end only the stem. I am not sure if they actually ate the small green
piece of leaf each one carried, or whether it was a protection mechanism
against the roots of the plant that probably entered their tunnels in their
nest. I have never seen an ant cutting or eating leaves before and it wasn't
a special kind of ants in any way.
The plant was attacked suddendly and it all ended up within a day.
Afterwards they resumed their normal behaviour and suddendly a few days
later, they would attack a new plant... Some plants that were planted a bit
further from their nest were never attacked.
Has anyone observed such a behavior? Could it be assiociated with the
irrigation and flooding of their nests when I was watering the plants?
A picture of what was left after an attack can be seen here:
http://imageshack.gr/view.php?file=l1n986ruy3ayusnez5y5.jpg
"mm" <NOPSAM...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:gbh1b4tjf6ivtmlqi...@4ax.com...
Flikina Rosalka
http://www.thestuccocompany.com/maintenance/Are-common-house-ants-cannibals-326363-.htm
:
I know lasius niger ants are because I saw a group of them eating one of
their queens (came back later and found they had left half the corpse).
They weren't provoked but spray or anything because I wouldn't want to get
rid of them (even though they are a bit of an inconvenience when they're
all over the kitchen floor between 9 and 10 PM). Quite a number of bugs
are cannibals so it's not really suprising.
Donita Luddington wrote:
> Are ants cannibals?
-------------------------------------
Ants104475237
"no flowers please" soon instead of taking food they take your flowers
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Ant
> replying to dadiOH, Ants104475237 wrote:
> "no flowers please" soon instead of taking food they take your flowers
--
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