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Blog
DEC
On a trip to Goa recently, I happened to notice masses of leaves stuck together on some trees adjoining the road. Closer examination revealed that these clumps of leaves both green and brown were nests of the weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina. This amazing creature is an expert at crafting nests out of leaves on trees using just sticky silky threads secreted by its larvae and by leaves joined together by worker ants holding each other between two leaves and functioning like a crane (used by humans for construction). In absence of any equipment or manufactured building material, the nests made by weaver ants are nothing short of miraculous. A single colony of weaver ants can have multiple nests on one tree or even multiple nests on several trees in proximity to include a population that can even reach half a million. The highly coordinated functioning of weaver ants of one colony as though they are parts of one creature has led to the coining of the super-organism to describe them. One composed of hundreds of thousands of ants all coordinated through the language of chemical scents called pheromones and aided by signals made through body movements. And to think of these tiny creatures doing it for about 50 million years, it seems perhaps humans are the less developed species who have been building structures and using language for communication may be just for the past 50000 years.
Weaver ants are found on fruit trees like cashew, mango and guava grown at Goa. The trees benefit from weaver ant colonies as the ants need food for their colony members and readily attack and devour any insect pests that happen to visit or infest their host tree. However, weaver ants also do their own farming on trees by protecting sucking pests like aphids and utilising the honey dew secreted by the aphids (generated by feeding on the tree). A weaver ant colony consists of a queen whose main function is to keep laying eggs and increase the colony population. The workers are of two types: major and minor, with the former being larger in size than the latter; major workers build the nest by using leaves and maintain it, expand the colony, fetch food for colony members, and finally protect the colony from predators or danger. The minor workers are involved in nursing the young of the colony and in farming insects to produce honey dew that is used to meet the carbohydrate needs of the colony. The weaver ants strictly follow the dictum 'one for all and all for one.' They create amazing structures out of locally available resources and without creating any kind of waste in the process. Their nest when no longer usable is easily decomposed and helps in naturally recycling nutrients present in the leaves used and debris generated by the ants from the functioning of their colony. Weaver ants like ants of other kinds play a very useful role in nature helping ecosystems in which they occur to control insects from becoming uncontrolled in numbers. They also act as natural scavengers recycling dead creatures by using them as food in their colony.
The community living, cooperation, communication leading to the ecological success of weaver ants is remarkable when compared with similar phenomena in human society. It is amazing that the weaver ant community establishes and perpetuates itself with functions earmarked among the colony members. The communal success of weaver ants does not involve any ‘technology’ for building their dwellings or for communication among members or harvesting food from other insects or for protecting themselves and expanding their colony. Their colonies are eco-friendly in the true sense in that no pollution results from weaver ant activity and their colonies and members are naturally recycled in their ecosystem on completing their lifespan. In contrast, humans have evolved tools (technology) over millennia for creating shelter, communication, farming, defence and for dealing with pollution resulting from human activity. However, human endeavour typically results in adversely affecting the biosphere and also generating waste that needs the effort to dispose of to be rendered ecologically safe. Pausing and looking at weaver ants could teach humans how better to organise themselves as a community that is sustainable and protective and supportive of its members.
DEC
On a trip to Goa recently, I happened to notice masses of leaves stuck together on some trees adjoining the road. Closer examination revealed that these clumps of leaves both green and brown were nests of the weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina. This amazing creature is an expert at crafting nests out of leaves on trees using just sticky silky threads secreted by its larvae and by leaves joined together by worker ants holding each other between two leaves and functioning like a crane (used by humans for construction). In absence of any equipment or manufactured building material, the nests made by weaver ants are nothing short of miraculous. A single colony of weaver ants can have multiple nests on one tree or even multiple nests on several trees in proximity to include a population that can even reach half a million. The highly coordinated functioning of weaver ants of one colony as though they are parts of one creature has led to the coining of the super-organism to describe them. One composed of hundreds of thousands of ants all coordinated through the language of chemical scents called pheromones and aided by signals made through body movements. And to think of these tiny creatures doing it for about 50 million years, it seems perhaps humans are the less developed species who have been building structures and using language for communication may be just for the past 50000 years.
Weaver ants are found on fruit trees like cashew, mango and guava grown at Goa. The trees benefit from weaver ant colonies as the ants need food for their colony members and readily attack and devour any insect pests that happen to visit or infest their host tree. However, weaver ants also do their own farming on trees by protecting sucking pests like aphids and utilising the honey dew secreted by the aphids (generated by feeding on the tree). A weaver ant colony consists of a queen whose main function is to keep laying eggs and increase the colony population. The workers are of two types: major and minor, with the former being larger in size than the latter; major workers build the nest by using leaves and maintain it, expand the colony, fetch food for colony members, and finally protect the colony from predators or danger. The minor workers are involved in nursing the young of the colony and in farming insects to produce honey dew that is used to meet the carbohydrate needs of the colony. The weaver ants strictly follow the dictum 'one for all and all for one.' They create amazing structures out of locally available resources and without creating any kind of waste in the process. Their nest when no longer usable is easily decomposed and helps in naturally recycling nutrients present in the leaves used and debris generated by the ants from the functioning of their colony. Weaver ants like ants of other kinds play a very useful role in nature helping ecosystems in which they occur to control insects from becoming uncontrolled in numbers. They also act as natural scavengers recycling dead creatures by using them as food in their colony.
The community living, cooperation, communication leading to the ecological success of weaver ants is remarkable when compared with similar phenomena in human society. It is amazing that the weaver ant community establishes and perpetuates itself with functions earmarked among the colony members. The communal success of weaver ants does not involve any ‘technology’ for building their dwellings or for communication among members or harvesting food from other insects or for protecting themselves and expanding their colony. Their colonies are eco-friendly in the true sense in that no pollution results from weaver ant activity and their colonies and members are naturally recycled in their ecosystem on completing their lifespan. In contrast, humans have evolved tools (technology) over millennia for creating shelter, communication, farming, defence and for dealing with pollution resulting from human activity. However, human endeavour typically results in adversely affecting the biosphere and also generating waste that needs the effort to dispose of to be rendered ecologically safe. Pausing and looking at weaver ants could teach humans how better to organise themselves as a community that is sustainable and protective and supportive of its members.
