Ant Hill Wood

Here we have two remarkable macro photos of M. rubra taken by a very gifted photographer, Brian Valentine who lives in Worthing,  just a few miles away from me in West Sussex on the south coast of England. The first shows a rubra worker drinking sweet sap exuded by cornflowers, probably where aphids have been feeding and have caused a wound on the flower bud? The second photo shows a worker carrying home a woodlouse meal. Woodlice are plentiful in my own garden, and although ants don't touch them normally, they will take and eat injured or dead ones which are easy pickings.

See more of his great photos here on his site}  http://lordv.smugmug.com/

This lovely photo of a couple of Myrmica rubra workers using their antennae to gently explore the finger above them, while balancing on what I was told is a water holder used for birds (as I thought it looked like a gooseberry), was taken by a friend of mine. My thanks go to Tim Keppens who lives in Belgium for this rather unusual and interesting photo close up, which came very close to winning an award in the National Geographic magazine.

It just goes to show how ants are very inquisitive little creatures, and have no fear of things bigger than them.

This lovely photo of a foraging worker ant was taken by my very good friend, Heath Cope, while he and his young son were out in their local woods looking for wood ants. While they did not find any wood ant species, they did encounter lots of Myrmica rubra workers out foraging among the woodland debris and ground level vegetation. This is an absolutely beautiful picture, showing some great close up detail of this particular ant species!

A second photo of what is probably the same worker ant, showing some very nice detail of the head with its antennae and mandibles.

These stunningly beautiful photos were taken by Tom, my young friend who lives in Somerset, England. He is without a doubt, a brilliant young man when it comes to using his camera to obtain close ups of ants; and my wife and I are so proud and happy that he is a member of our Ant Hill World forum!

 To see even more of these M. rubra photos, and also the lovely pictures of Lasius fuliginosus that Tom has taken; then why not come along and join our U.K. based ant forum, as I'm sure you will find it worth your while and extremely interesting! You will find a link for Ant Hill World on the home page of my site.

Here we can see a mass of Myrmica workers who are busy about their nest in early May.

A close up view of a red ant nest. I had to be careful that I didn't get stung taking this one,as red ants have quite a fiery temper and sting as well.On this picture,we can clearly see the larvae in the typical letter "J" position. The head of a larva is curved upwards, which makes it easier for the nurse ants to feed it!! Nurses also pick up the larvae from time to time and move them to a different area.This helps the growing larva,as it is moved to a part of the nest where warmth and humidity are more suited to its development.

Like many ants,Myrmica nests in moist soil under stones. The stone acts like a roof to protect the nest from heavy rains,disturbance from browsing animals etc. The nest also has many roots of plants and grasses growing in the soil. These not only act as a kind of scaffolding to build the underground chambers around;but also may have aphids on them that the ants can "milk" for honeydew. Here the chambers are full of eggs and newly hatched larvae.

Nurses of Myrmica ruginodis scurry away as fast as their little legs can carry them. In their jaws,we can clearly see the white bundles of dozens of tiny eggs. As soon as I had lifted up the protective stone covering the nest,the nurses rushed to move the eggs deeper into the nests galleries and chambers. This,of course,is part of the nurse ants job and is done for the safety and continuation of the next generation.

This photo shows nurse ants caring for the eggs and larva of their nest.Nurse ants constantly lick and clean the brood to protect them from disease and fungal attacks.

Ants have strong claws on their feet,so the pull of gravity was no problem to these worker ants. Here,I have lifted up the stone that covered the nest,and as you can see,the ants have no trouble hanging upside-down and rarely fall off. I was lucky taking this photo as I did not get attacked and stung by angry worker ants in defence of their nest !

Here is an excellent photo of my friends Myrmica rubra colony, showing workers with pupae and larvae in various stages of development. Taz has recently moved this colony from its old home,into a bigger Formicarium with more space and nicer living conditions for his ants. Again, thanks Taz for the use of these great photos !