Backyard Herping...ants and herps

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ratsnakehaven
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Joined: June 8th, 2010, 9:08 am
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Backyard Herping...ants and herps

Post by ratsnakehaven »

Ok, no pics. I just need some info on ants basically.

I've been waging war on these leaf-cutter ants in our front and back yards. They can strip the fresh leaves off of a small tree or bush overnight. I work too hard on my landscaping to let them just have their way. The problem is there are many species of ants and I don't want to chase off the wrong ones. Many of our lizards eat ants and, of course, the regal horned lizard is fairly dependent on them. I don't want to chase the regals out of our yard either.

Recently I've noticed that there are black ants, as well as red ants, that are out gathering up vegetation to take back to their underground nests. I've seen the red ants attacking living shrubbery, but haven't noticed the black ones doing that. They seem to only take dead vegetation, like mesquite leaves, etc. I started thinking about the horned lizards and the guides say they eat mostly harvester ants. So, one question is, "Are harvester ants different from leaf-cutter ants?" I hope I can leave the harvester ants alone, so the horned lizards will come into the yard. Anybody proficient in ant feeding ecology?

Thanks for taking the time to read this message and my lizards will thank you too if I can get the answers I'm looking for. Later....

Terry :crazyeyes:
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herpseeker1978
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Re: Backyard Herping...ants and herps

Post by herpseeker1978 »

Hey Terry,

Have you found the mounds of any of the ants? The ants carrying dead vegetation may be harvester ants. They will line their ant mound with various different things such as seeds, gravel and in some places, turquoise! The red harvester ants will line their mounds with grains of sand. They look like little clods of dirt. I don't know if they eat live vegetation though. You nay try posting this in the invertebrate forum: viewforum.php?f=36

Josh
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ratsnakehaven
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Re: Backyard Herping...ants and herps

Post by ratsnakehaven »

Thanks, Josh. I will try the invertebrate forum soon. I forgot that we had one of those.

I have seen the mounds that the ants take their booty into. Sometimes they travel long distances and there may be thousands of ants marching along, each with some little piece of vegetable matter. Sometimes they attack a living plant, stripping off the leaves. They often work during the night. Other times they find a place where there's lots of litter on the ground, like dead leaves under a mesquite tree. I just noticed recently that I can distinguish between a dark colored ant, close to black, and a lighter colored one, closer to red. I've been thinking that some ants might only want to clean up litter from the brush and trees and aren't really a threat to the trees themselves.

Most of the mounds I've seen were big piles of sand, much less coarse than the earth around them. It's like they push up the finer particles from underground at the point where they want to bring their veggies in. Other mounds are covered with the bits and pieces of vegetable matter they have been gathering. These are leaf-cutter ants. They target a bush or tree. For instance, I found some this morning attacking a Texas ranger (bush). They climb into the bush and cut the leaves at the base of the leaf. On the ground other ants chop the leaves up into carrying size parcels. It's easy to see these ants, they're all carrying something green and marching, nearly single file, back to their nest. When I put a little ant powder on the nest opening, they'll stop their activity, and often times will move their mound opening further away from the site.

I'm thinking the ones carrying dead vegetation are safe to leave alone. They might not be leaf-cutters at all; but then again, maybe the leaf-cutters take both live and dead vegetation. That's my problem. I haven't much expertise on ants.

Thanks for the response and my lizards thank you too... ;)
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ratsnakehaven
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Re: Backyard Herping...ants and herps

Post by ratsnakehaven »

Did some more research and got some replies on the Invertebrate Forum. They are all leafcutter ants, Acromyrmex versicolor, the desert leafcutter ant, and the only leafcutter in this part of AZ. They are shades of reddish-brown and they do not have a sting. I put a few pics up on the other forum.

Horned lizards usually eat ants mostly, but sometimes other insects. I doubt that the regal horned lizard would eat only harvester ants, which are a different species from the leafcutters. As a matter of fact I saw one in our front this summer which I believe was eating leafcutters. There doesn't seem to be any harvesters on our property.

One thing that is interesting is that a lot of folks don't know that just about all the different kinds of lizards will eat ants. So, if we get rid of the ants it would be taking away a food source for many herps. Thankfully, there are many different species of ants, so my war on the leafcutters won't take away the ants entirely. I'm sure the lizards will still find lots to eat. They always do.

Now I have the challenge to find other species of ants, including harvesters...LoL.

TC :crazyeyes:
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ratsnakehaven
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Re: Backyard Herping...ants and herps

Post by ratsnakehaven »

I watched a tree lizard on a palo verde tree in the backyard today and it ate a number of ants, chasing them around the trunk of the tree. I wonder how much part of their diet the ants are?

TC :shock:
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