When I pick up a wild ant such as this Camponotus pennsylvanicus minor worker I’m always anxious that I return her to her colony. I followed her after letting her go. She ran the full length of a football field then suddenly up a pole. Waiting there another ant of the same species. They fussed over each other. Grooming and feeding each other for several minutes. Then they tucked into a nook in the fence and went to sleep! I guess they won’t be taking me to their main nest today.
I was trying to find the location of the main colony and looked up to see this huge tree stump. Probably cut down to keep leaves off of the field 😡— it was once home to a vast colony of probably 20,000 or more carpenters! The ants I saw are probably the great granddaughters of the single queen who sired the substantial colony that marked the great tree. The stump may prove home to many more large colonies as it decays— though, the universe of organisms that was once this tree cannot compare.
When one is invested in little creatures one can get quite worked up about the removal of large trees— they are whole worlds for little ants, pseudo scorpions, isopods, spiders, slugs, aphids and beetles—
I’ve been trying to count all of the species of invertebrate on a single tree near my apartment and have not reached a limit in three years— there are always more! and between them so much drama and excitement.
@futurebird waht's your current count? i remember keeping a jar of pond scum for a year and half on the window and over that time counted ~60 different microcritters.
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