Unusual ant work

Strange hole. Maybe the width of a pencil. A ring of scattered sand from below, but no tracks, no signs of any activity.

Another little mystery from a dog walk in Villa Argentina norte.

Ants and broken glass

Just a few seconds of small ants making their way over and under broken glass. Notice the gust of wind in the last second.

Two roads diverged

The fork in the ant highway: I have seen many, many leaf-cutter ant trails, but I’m not aware that I’ve ever seen a fork in one.

Crazy tiny ants

Very busy tiny red ants we’ve never seen before, on the dog walk today.

Las hormigas locas

The crazy ants. As soon as a foreign “invader” stick is added, they’re all over it – immediately!

Ant activity after rain

The rain-darkened stump provided a nice contrast to the fresh bits brought up from the center by the ants. Very difficult to see, even live, but they were there working.

Close call for a cutter ant

Leaf cutter ants are annoying. They’re worse than annoying; they’re horrible. They can strip a tree of all its leaves overnight, as I have seen more than once with young trees I have planted in Uruguay.

At the same time, they are rather awesome to watch up close.

We were particularly impressed with a procession of fresh eucalyptus harvest that crossed our path today. Check out the ant with the flower in particular.

And check out how close he came to not making it across the path!