Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1904 — A Troublesome Ant. [ARTICLE]

A Troublesome Ant.

In the state of Colombia there is a large ant (Atta cepbalotes) which causes a great deal of injury to plantations. It attacks and carries off indiscriminately all kinds of foliage, and no sort of vegetation seems to come amiss to it. The quantity of foliagecarried off by these ants is Immense A naturalist recently investigated the * uses to which the ants put this mass * of vegetable matter, and he ascertain ed that they employ it to make hot beds, upon which their eggs are depos ited to be hatched by the heat produced by the fermentation of the leaves. The ants do not eat these portions for food, and the larvse are fed upon a carefully selected diet. Once thfc brood is hatched, the ants clear away the hotbed, carrying out of their nest ail the decom- , posed vegetable matter. This is thrown; out In heaps apart, and i* the large ant hills these heaps will contain bushels? and upward.