Does your yard seem boring this time of year because there are no bird songs or cricket calls or bees buzzing around the flowers? Here’s an eye-opening story about some of the crazy and unforgettable things that happen down in the ground—even in the winter.
I was happily doing an archaeological dig in my yard when my trowel cut open the side of a crypt. I was cutting a nice, straight, vertical wall for the perimeter of my excavation unit when a hole appeared in the wall. The trowel cut just enough dirt away to make a “window” which let light stream into that crypt. When I peered into that “window,” I saw numerous tiny white things inside the little room.
What on earth is going on in there? I wondered.
Since it wouldn’t have been practical to use the loupe that is always in my pocket, I ran for my camera. Its macro lens transformed that crypt into a room where I could see that those many white things were ant larvae. The helpless larvae were spread across the floor, hanging on the walls, and even hanging on the ceiling. Because of my intrusion, the larvae were being whisked away by tiny madly scrambling yellow ants. What would it be like to be in the pitch blackness about a foot down in the ground in that room full of larvae being tended by their ants?
One larva in the middle right of the room had my attention for a while because it looked like it was standing on a ledge and yelling, “Somebody help me!”
Then something really crazy happened! Down from the ceiling dropped a very small spider. It started grabbing ant larvae, wrapping them up in silk, and suspending them from strands of silk. Judging from the number of silk strands I could see inside the crypt (it looked like there was a three-dimensional web in there), I don’t think the spider had just stumbled across the ants’ brood chamber, but rather, was already living in there before my trowel opened the crypt.
That spider in the ant nest piqued my curiosity! How did it get inside the ant nest, and why didn’t the ants tear it to pieces? Does the spider have the ants fooled into thinking it’s a member of their colony? A spider in an ant nest—that was an eye-opener for me.
What more could I learn about the lives of ants and their friends/enemies in my yard? From a quick search, I learned that most kinds of spiders refuse to eat ants. So the spider from the crypt was probably one of the few kinds of spiders that preys on ants. Eating ants is called myrmecophagy. There are a variety of fascinating ways these spiders get close to or live among the ants. There are even some spiders that have been designed to mimic the look of ants (myrmecomorphy). That brings to mind various times I have seen small strange-looking longish spiders that looked very much like ants.
The tiny yellow ants of my crypt were probably the hairless rover ants Bachymyrmex depilis. These ants are subterranean—they spend most of their time underground farming root aphids and mealybugs. By “farming,” I mean the ants “tend” aphids or mealybugs like a farmer does his cows. “Farming” ants move their “cows” around to better “pasture,” protect the “cows” from predators, “milk” them for honeydew, and eat some of them.
During the fall, some additional aphids and mealybugs migrate (perhaps with the help of ants) from trees and plants down into the ground where they can feed on roots during the winter.
Speaking of ants and their “cows,” one previous day I was doing some archaeology. While I was scraping away the plow zone to see if I could uncover any ancient features, my trowel took the roof off another crypt. It was in the shape of a backwards Louisiana but no bigger than a quarter. I saw the mad scramble as some ants hustled away their “cows.” There was also an eclectic variety of other tiny insects like springtails, bristletails, etc., in the room.
Why were all those different kinds of critters in that ant nest? Were the ants having a rodeo or something? By the time I got my camera so I could get a better look at these tiny creatures, there was only one “cow” left in the crypt. I’m going to have to solve the problem of seeing these tiny ant nest creatures before they run away, because I can’t keep my camera handy while digging in the dirt. There’s got to be a way I can see and learn more about the ants and the ant-associated insects (myrmecophiles) living in ant colonies that I uncover while I’m digging.
Incidentally, you don’t need to be doing archaeology to see ants, their “cows,” or ant-associated insects. I’ve seen this kind of thing on roots while pulling up old string bean stalks. I’ve seen mealybugs and ants when I pulled up unwanted maple saplings in the late fall. I’ve seen weird critters in ant nests while flipping rocks.
Now that it’s winter, I’m remembering the variety of ants I saw while digging in my yard. I think I’ll start an ant collection this coming summer. Maybe I’ll make a display and call it “The Ants of A Quarter Acre” or something like that. And while I’m at it, I should order or make a pooter (aspirator) to use when I can get to digging again. That way when my trowel happens to cut open a crypt, I can simply suck up the tiny inhabitants with the pooter and look at them later under the microscope. That would solve the problem of keeping my camera out of the dirt, and fewer of the creatures would escape before I could get a good look at them. However, sucking up the creatures of the crypt would create another kind of problem. I wouldn’t be transported into a crypt full of ants, ant larvae, and all kinds of ant-associated insects, and would miss out on watching them interact in their environment.
It’s winter. Your yard might look rather quiet this time of year. But just imagine, down in the ground, crypts full of ants, ant larvae, and all kinds of ant-associated insects might be hustling and bustling or something. If your frost isn’t too deep, there’s a chance root aphids and mealybugs are being tended or eaten by their farmer ants. And then, in the pitch blackness, a spider drops down from the ceiling….
