Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 January 1904 — A Troublesome Ant. [ARTICLE]

A Troublesome Ant.

In the state of Colombia there is a large ant (Atta cephalotep) 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 foliage carried off by these ants is immense. A naturalist recently Investigated the uses to which the ants put this mass of vegetable matter, and he ascertained that they employ it to make hotbeds upon which their eggs are deposited to be hatched by the heat produced by the fermentation of the leaves. The ants do not eat these portions for food, and the larvae are fed upon a carefully selected diet. Once the brood is hatched the ants clear away the hotbed, carrying out of their nest all the decomposed vegetable matter. This is thrown out in heaps apart, and in the large ant hills these heaps will contain bushels and upward.