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Project Noah Nature School
Oecophylla smaragdina
This morning, I was out on a "bug hunt", accompanied by my niece who has spent her entire life on a nearby farm and knows a lot about local wildlife. I was taking some photos of a spider web when I noticed the ant nest, just a few feet away. So, I took the pictures, shown above, but it wasn't quite so simple and straight forward as that. For details of what led up to the eventual picture taking, please read my Notes below.
Spotted in the farm on a Mango Tree (Mangifera indica Linn.) locally known as Mangang-kalabau. Plant information from - http://www.stuartxchange.org/Mangga.html..............
When I first saw the ant nest, there seemed to be a lot of activity on and around it. So, I asked my niece "What do you think is going on there? Could it be a territorial dispute between rival colonies?" and I was astonished by her answer. She said, with great confidence (and in a very matter-of-fact way), "They are angry at you". I didn't want to be rude and say that she was talking nonsense and just made it clear that I thought she was joking, but she was not. She said "Watch this" and stepped a little closer to the nest and reached out her hand to within 10 or 12 inches of the nest, waiving it from side to side. I exclaimed that I didn't see any difference in the wild running around of the ants. She replied "Now you do it" and quickly added "But don't go as close as I did". I stuck out my hand and, foolishly, against her advice, went just as close as she had gone. The ants seemed to go crazy, running around at great speed. A few, which were perched on the tips of the leaves nearest to me, immediately leapt onto my hand and gave me several rather painful bites. It seems that they were indeed angry at me ..... for clicking and flashing my camera, so many times, when photographing the spider web, a few feet away from the ant nest. Of course, I apologised to my niece for doubting her knowledge, but I still can't quite understand how the ants could differentiate between us. I can accept that they might think the camera was a threat, but how could they possibly know that I operated the camera and my niece did not? I think it would be wise to concentrate on my spiders and a few other sundry bugs that I call my "favourites" and leave the ants to get on with "whatever ants get on with".
Spotted on Mar 23, 2024
Submitted on Mar 23, 2024
2 Comments
Hi Sukanya, Thank you for your comment. I have absolutely no idea what these little creatures are capable of, but the whole episode has rather shaken me. At first I thought that I had been the victim of some kind of trickery, but my niece has assured me that she would not do any such thing and I believe her ("niece" sounds like I am talking about a child, but she is in her late thirties and level headed).. It is probably something very simple. I think that when I was taking photos of a spider, on the same tree, some of the flashes would, almost certainly, have reached the ants and, of course, they might have felt threatened. Then when I approached their nest, the camera was still hanging around my neck. So they might not have been afraid of, or angry with me. Perhaps they were reacting to the approach of the camera and were sufficiently alarmed to strike out at anything that moved. It might be possible to test that possibility by repeating the whole event with the camera round my neck and without the camera round my neck, but I don't think the result, either way, would have much value. Perhaps it would be better just to let them get on with their lives. I have considered trying to manage without the use of "flash", but the best settings (for spider web pictures) include "mandatory flash". So, I just have to be a little more careful from now on.
Interesting...do you think they cottoned on to different individual scents? I never knew ants could differentiate between individuals.