Aphid-herding ants, believe it or not

[davetree]

Here is an aphid herding ant with his herd on one of my spirea. I tried to get close enough to film an ant carrying an aphid in its jaws, but when you get too close the ants drop off the plant and scatter. This is the best I could do.

The ants carry the aphids to the plant in the morning and milk them at night underground. I thought you might enjoy !

 

[Poink88]

The ones on mine "milk" or "extort" on the spot. The ants do relocate some of them from time to time...until I nuke them.

 

[GrimLore]

Here is an aphid herding ant with his herd on one of my spirea. I tried to get close enough to film an ant carrying an aphid in its jaws, but when you get too close the ants drop off the plant and scatter. This is the best I could do.

The ants carry the aphids to the plant in the morning and milk them at night underground. I thought you might enjoy !

That is indeed common but I never saw it pictured so well! I treat all surfaces related to and in close range to all of our potted plants for that and a few other reasons like cutworms. Thank you for the picture

 

[Gaitano]

Here's one of my resident predators.

I've seen a few around this year. This guy was about 2" long

 

[cmeg1]

Very interesting,there is always an ant in the vicinity of the aphids on my chojubai's.

 

[0soyoung]

I find it interesting that we know the contents of the phloem thanks to aphids. They place their stylets (sucking tubes) into the phloem and extract the photosynthates - too much becomes sugary, poopy-water (aka 'honeydew') which is what the ants are really after.

Squish up a bunch of aphids, strain out the liquid, put it into a gas chromatograph or mass spectrometer and, viola, one knows the chemical content of the phloem - damn near impossible to do without those pesky aphids.

Nice pic, davetree!

 

[berobinson82]

Here's one of my resident predators.View attachment 39602

I've seen a few around this year. This guy was about 2" long

"Oh heeeeeeyyyyyyyy."

Do these guys stick around if you purchase them and drop them on your benches?

 

[Beng]

Some do i've bought them before, they're more for your personal enjoyment then for bug killing. Although they kill some bugs it's not like they're gonna wipe out an aphid population.

 

[edprocoat]

LOl whenever I mention ants carrying aphids onto my plants people react like I am deluded! I have seen this many times, my cotoneaster (now adorning the halls of Bonsai heaven) was the worst for this. I was using commercial insecticidal soap, every day as they kept coming back. I switched to Bayer insecticide and that would work for almost a week. wassupposed to be 30 day protection. I had the best luck using the ant bait gels, when I nearly eliminated the ants the aphids stopped showing up.

ed

 

[Poink88]

Aphids mostly hit my crabapples, quince and now crape myrtle. Bayer Advance with imidacloprid twice a year takes them all out within couple of days. Ants don't show up anymore possibly because no more aphids to herd or they also died.

 

[Paradox]

I've seen ants farming aphids on a couple of my trees. Tried spraying them with a hose, cutting the effected leaf. Finally had to apply insecticide to get rid of them.

 

[daygan]

And if all that's not enough evidence, here's a close-up of an aphid farmer:

from The Guardian.