Hormigas!!!
What are these leaves doing scattered over the terrace just hours after Pasiano swept? I decide to investigate.
Aha! The evidence is pretty clear when I find a chewed-up leaf.
Can you see those razor-sharp incisors about to close around this leaf?
More leaf-cutter compadres ascend my hibiscus, scouting out fodder for the hundreds of ants who will trek here in darkness to strip the bush and carry it away.
The team work is so incredible that I hate to interfere, but if I don’t, there will be no foliage surrounding my house by the time I get home in two months.
As above, the “timberjack” ant saws away on yet another leaf,
I scatter pellets.
By tomorrow, all the pellets will be gone, carried away by these bearer ants–and hopefully, the ants will be gone, too.
Hormigas, by the way, is Spanish for Leafcutter Ants. (I didn’t want to give away the answer before the question was asked.) They are fascinating to watch, with their generals and slaves, double machete-weilding lumberjacks dropping pieces of leaves to the bearers below, tinier slave ants carrying many times their own weight, some ESP that causes swarms of ants to appear to help any ant who needs help over an obstacle or out of a hole. I could watch all day as bush after vine is depleted of leaves and flowers, but then–I’d have no bushes or flowers, so I resort to the little pellets that, carried back to the nest, with luck for me and no luck for the ants, will clear it out. Cruel nature either way.
http://ceenphotography.com/2016/01/13/prompt-stomp-week-14-challenge-things-that-are-small/
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
I hate to kill anything and avoid it like the plague, but sometimes one must do something drastic (after appealing to St. Francis and perhaps not being patient enough for the asked humane divine intervention), but as my son reminds me, “God will make millions more ants. Yes, and mice.” 😦 Also like you, I love watching ants or anything in nature.
LikeLike
Well organized group. About to take over the world, I’m sure of it!
LikeLike
I love to study ants! They are such interesting little creatures!
LikeLike
Talk about a army of worker ants, those little critters know how to get the job done! Wouldn’t that be something of people worked tht good together?
Judy, since you taught school in Australia I thought I would send you this URL. You might enjoy looking at this blog.
Have a good day.
LikeLike
Great photos of these little workers. I saw them in the Panama Jungle eating the yellow plastic cover of our toilet paper on the pit toilet we dug aways from our camp site. They carried the plastic away to a huge mound, not far from our pit toilet, where they were busy building. I thought they were awesome and loved watching them. Then…I moved to Mexico and when they devoured my plants I decided they weren’t so good. Do the little pellets work?
LikeLike
Amazing photos. I thought these critters only existed in the Amazon.
LikeLike
These are really great shots, Judy. Sharp and close up. I can almost hear those little chompers chomping.
LikeLike
They say there are so many in the Amazon that you can hear their approach. Did you ever read the short story “Leningren vs. the Ants?” It was a classic. I’m now ensconced in Casa Gaviotas. Hear the sound of the ocean in the background?
LikeLike
did they leave one flower for you…or do I misunderstand your next post where you feature the yellow orange hibiscus flower? Probably coincidentally, my Hibiscus which are usually so prolific were sparse, with sparse foliage.
LikeLike
That was the flower they left for me! Time will tell if there will be any leaves left. I am now at the beach, having driven for 5 hours today. Maggie will be at my house for 2 months caring for the canine crew!
LikeLike
on thinking it over, my leaves were pretty shredded, at first I thought the plant was gone but it came back late. I-‘ll see if I candig out some pics. I have three, .a white, white/ pink, and the red.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Send me a link if you do.
LikeLike
I will. Something I thought was odd…the new shoots did not come up on the red one until quite late….I thought it had died because at the bottom of the plant the old stalks seemed like they were broken or cut off. Then where I had had maybe a dozen shoots the year before, I had only about three. Another thing, my poppies did nlt do well last year either. And I noticed my neighbor across the street’s hibiscus looked skinny too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Did you post pics of your red hibiscus today? i was looking at them and commenting but when I clicked on a picture to enlarge it, It went to a different post and I could never get back to the original one….I’m having such strange problems with the blog today. Must be the full moon…Judy
LikeLike
I know…I messed up the post somehow. I’ll repost it so the photos are larger. I was trying something new in grabbing images to use…and it didn’t work for me. I tried to get to you but don’t know how when there is just a “like” so I knew you would message. I’ll post anew.
LikeLike
I am having problems too…I had the new post all ready to send, tried to add a note, and poof! it’s gone…. Maybe it is the full moon, I never thought of that. I am trying to include photos from at least three different times…years in fact, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I will post just the one picture from 2015 which shows the damage we are talking about. 🙂 Did you get that awful picture of me…I have no idea how that got in there. I sound like such an amateur… geez!
LikeLike
No I didn’t see it. You are safe!
LikeLike
it isn’t that bad, it just makes me look my age. then I have a scarf around my neck that makes me look like I’m wearing a shawl. goofy…
LikeLike
forget the hibiscus…. the image I wanted you to see refuses to enlarge, and its a lousy picture anyway. I thought I took some of the damage, but maybe not. The point was that the red hibiscus didn’t come up when the others did, and I thought it had died. When it did appear it was straggley, and had only a handful of ffflowers….and insect damage. The blooms themselves were ok, but the foliage was sparse.
LikeLike
Okay…I know I saw your images at one point, but they were sacrificed to the gods of the internet. Gorgeous red. I don’t have any red ones!
LikeLike
that is a gorgeous red, I was upset when I thought I lost it. The bottom, where the new shoots come up, was just all “cut” in threads, but I let it alone and waited to see if some new growth would show, and it did. The others are nice too, but the red is just spectacular.
LikeLike
Wow. Interesting. Do they bite people?
LikeLike
yes… I have a story where one clamped down on the skin between my thumb and first finger. It was excruciating.
LikeLike
I bet it is fascinating to watch and I would do the same with the pellets – they are not an endangered species – lol
LikeLike
Pingback: Missed Opportunity: Last on the Card, May 31, 2024 | lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown