Sunday 15 July 2012: green ants Walking back from lunch at the
ARC (though this part of the world is seeming more and more Ark
like this is actually the Alyangula Recreation Club) spotted
this clumpy packet of leaves in a candelnut tree. Green ants
build these nests by joining the leaves together with a silky,
sticky liquid produced by squeezing their larvae which the
worker ants bring from an already established nest.Not much fun
for the poor old larvae mind you! Great team workers, if one ant
can't reach the next leaf required in the nest making, other
ants form a chain to slowly pull it in. Completed, these nests
may be up to 50cm in length and several individual nests will
make up a colony's home. Also known as sugar and honey ants,
they have a little green bulbous 'bottom' containing a sugary
oil that is used by Aborginals as a sweetener and medicinally,
and in a 'beeless' environment these ants are the fruit flower
pollinators. Talk about multi taskers.