The ant lion (doodlebug)

Ant lions - the insect version of sarlacc.
Remember that scene in Return of the Jedi when Luke was dangling over The Great Pit of Carkoon?  There was an unseen beast there, hiding beneath the sand, waiting for a tasty morsel to drop.  It was the sarlacc, a mythical creature which hunted passively, although there was nothing passive about the way its prey was devoured.  Its appetite knew no bounds; all that fell into its maw would be mercilessly consumed.  Fortunately for Luke, a certain android, and a handy light saber, he was spared the torment that others were not.

 Here, on present day Earth, there exists a similar malevolence.  With jaws of spring steel and lightening fast reflexes, it waits silently at the bottom of a pit of its own.  Tiny hairs peak up from its funnel-shaped base.  Each one a trigger spelling doom for any visitors.  This is the lair of the larval ant lion.  Tiny in comparison to the sarlacc, but just as deadly, the insect hides beneath the substrate.  Dinner is coming.

 The trap itself is only an inch or two across.  Very small ant lions produce traps with openings the size of a dime.  Made out of sand, it awaits for something to approach.  The step of an ant on the edge causes a single grain of sand to descent where it wakes the resident into action.  Tossing sand up into the air with its great jaws, the ant lion is seeking to cause its meal to stumble.  Once the prey slips and falls into the pit, panic sets in as it attempts to scurry away.  More sand is flung, but the escape attempt is in vain as the desperate insect gets ever closer to the unseen awaiting jaws.

 Then, a hair is touched, not by sand this time but by something larger.  All its senses honed and tuned, the final act begins.  Jaws as large as the ant itself open and are thrust out onto the awaiting meal.  With no chance of reprieve, the ant lion snatches the ant and quickly draws it beneath the sand to await certain death.  

 I find these remarkable creatures in dry areas of the country where there are open sandy areas near ant colonies.  Sunny paths which I travel on may be dotted with ant lion pits, each one hosting a ravenous hidden larva awaiting its next meal.  I will take a fallen pine needle and touch the trap's side, watching the explosion of sand result from the stimulus.  Occasionally, I will "volunteer" an ant and watch in morbid fascination as it attempts to escape the pit.  Rarely successful, it falls further into the trap where it will meet its inevitable end.

 It is amazing to see what other things ant lions prey upon.  I have found moths' wings left behind; they will eat beetles and any other organism small enough to be overpowered.  It may take two or three years for the growing larva to mature.  When ready, they pupate and hide beneath the sand until they emerge as adults.  They mate and the female deposits eggs in different sandy patches where the next generation can begin.  It is amazing to see the beautiful adults, so different from their young.  I can only image how an adult sarlacc may appear - it would certainly be something wonderful to behold.

 Video on ant lions:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaLILsssLYg

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The maze of life.

Image
The skeletonizing of a leaf by a leaf miner. Born to tunnel; a simple egg laid on a leaf produces a tiny caterpillar.  It immediately becomes an industrial machine, boring into the leaf and consuming the matter between layers.  Barely visible to the human eye, it proceeds in a relatively straight line until it finds an obstacle.  Undeterred, it changes direction and continues its momentum; becoming larger with each centimeter consumed.  The tunnels become larger and its progress faster.  Soon it has consumed almost half an entire leaf.  Thwarted by the main vein running through the middle, it is now large enough to chew through the tougher structure.  Continuing the destruction, the caterpillar finds an outside edge.  It is time to rest.  Spinning silken web, it makes a bed out of the very vegetation it has been consuming.  When it wakes, it will no longer be a caterpillar, but a newly emerged moth bent on laying its own eggs to star...
Read more

Western thrashing ant attacking insect larva.

Image
Western thrashing ant attacking insect larva. We arrived at an area of southwest Washington called Long Beach yesterday.   This morning I was out for a quiet walk with my camera; it was equipped with a macro lens and macro lighting system.   It is always fun to explore new places to see what kinds of finds can be discovered.   I had quite a bit of luck as I ended up with half a dozen pictures which I am excited about.   The one above is an example. Thrashing ants feed on a wide variety of foods.   They will take seeds, honeydew from aphids, and small prey items such as this insect larva.   Ants have very strong jaws.   They are capable of subduing smaller insects with relative ease and, when working together, can overpower significantly larger creatures.   They will bring their find back to the nest where it will be fed to larvae, the queen, and shared amongst the adults.   When in “bug mode,” I am scanning the environment for a...
Read more

How to get rid of a wasp's nest.

Image
The yellow jacket wasp. Yesterday I was busily working on some yard work when I looked up and saw a most uncomfortable sight.  Wasps had moved in.  A small nook in my deck cover was now the home to a yellow jacket wasp colony.  If I have learned anything about wasps during my time on Mother Earth, it is that wasp nests only get bigger over time.  It is better to deal with them now rather than later.  It is one of those problems you simply cannot ignore and hope it goes away.  If you have ever played one of those computer games where you obtain resources and build an empire, the development of a wasp nest is something like that.  A single wasp, a queen, slowly constructs a tiny enclave in some hopefully safe spot.  Foraging for food, she builds a nest, lays her eggs, and tends the young until they mature.  These underlings then go on to forage, build, and tend in a slowly exponential manner.  Soon, small becomes big, then big beco...
Read more