neoro
08-03-2008, 09:40 PM
I have been shooting mostly jumping spiders most of the time as they are the most commonly superbly interesting subject IMHO. Its only of recent that I noticed the strange behavior of Ants moving around as well as tending to a smaller green bug.
A few posts here and there over the past few weeks, and the word Aphid started to appear. So a few weeks passed by and today, while doing some macro shooting action, I increase the magnification and decided to investigate further.
I made some reference to the net (Source : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071009212548.htm) and there are my summary/understanding.
Aphids are farmed by Ants as a source of food for their sugar rich excretion which they produce (honeydew). Observed aphids, live in colony nearby ant colony. These aphids have wings however, the ants would rip the wings apart and using certain chemicals from the ant, onto the aphids, suppressing the growth of the aphid's wings.
These aphid's feed on plants, and they excrete this honeydew like substance which is rich in sugar.
The natural predators for aphid's are ladybugs and it was been observed ants fighting off these ladybugs.
----
After reading from the source above, my understanding of these tiny ant community grew even more. No wonder I don't see any lady bugs around.
Well, here are a picture of what I saw this evening. Almost invisible to the naked eye due to their size. I would say, its common on plants, but we normally see them as white dots on the flower.
1)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3200/2727481705_1b81b212c7_o.jpg
2) Oh.. the ants are asleep ?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3264/2728310064_4a15bc888e_o.jpg
A few posts here and there over the past few weeks, and the word Aphid started to appear. So a few weeks passed by and today, while doing some macro shooting action, I increase the magnification and decided to investigate further.
I made some reference to the net (Source : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071009212548.htm) and there are my summary/understanding.
Aphids are farmed by Ants as a source of food for their sugar rich excretion which they produce (honeydew). Observed aphids, live in colony nearby ant colony. These aphids have wings however, the ants would rip the wings apart and using certain chemicals from the ant, onto the aphids, suppressing the growth of the aphid's wings.
These aphid's feed on plants, and they excrete this honeydew like substance which is rich in sugar.
The natural predators for aphid's are ladybugs and it was been observed ants fighting off these ladybugs.
----
After reading from the source above, my understanding of these tiny ant community grew even more. No wonder I don't see any lady bugs around.
Well, here are a picture of what I saw this evening. Almost invisible to the naked eye due to their size. I would say, its common on plants, but we normally see them as white dots on the flower.
1)
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3200/2727481705_1b81b212c7_o.jpg
2) Oh.. the ants are asleep ?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3264/2728310064_4a15bc888e_o.jpg