Wednesday, April 01, 2015

It's A Bug Of War! Hungry Ants To Pull Fly Apart For Dinner

This is the moment a group of weaver hungry ants entered into a tug of war after they captured a fly and desperately fought to have it for their dinner.

The bright orange bugs were photographed in Tiruvalla, India as they battled with one another to take the stricken horse fly back to their nest.

Photographer Sreekumar Mahadevan Pillai said he took the photograph in his back garden, where a massive teak tree acts as a home for millions of half-inch long weaver ants. 

The photographs begin by showing two highly aggressive weaver ants fighting over the captured fly, before being joined by a third.
Pulling their prey taught, the ants use all their strength to try to win the meal for themselves.

The trio clearly take too long battling one another however, as minutes later they are joined by dozens more weaver ants who swarm over the horse fly and the surrounding teak tree twig.

The battle for the horse lasted more than an hour before the weaver ants eventually compromised and settled down to eat the bug together. 
They took so long fighting one another that Mr Pillai was able to take dozens of photographs. 

Speaking of the battle, the 39-year-old neurosurgeon said: 'There is a huge teak tree leaning over my terrace which hosts millions of weaver ants.'

Weaver ant colonies can be extremely large, consisting of more than a hundred nests spanning numerous trees and containing more than half a million workers.

'Weaver ants are very aggressive insects and it is common to see them carrying dead bugs and worms. These ants stayed in position for a while allowing me to take some good pictures, Mr Pillai said. 

'I was really happy with this shot, I knew that I had captured a unique moment,' he added.

'As a result of rapid urbanisation, our children are not able to watch and learn from insects such as ants and spiders as easily as we once were able to.
'Because of this I feel it's important for us to teach our kids to love and protect nature,' Mr Pillai went on to say.

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