The extremely busy ant world is undergoing puzzling changes. The site of seething ant nests - photographed and previously posted by nature watcher Vallis- has undergone major and baffling changes .
Instead of masses of large ants (above),some with wings, covering an area in which there were open , ground level entrance nests , new volcano shaped ones (below) were constructed by fewer and much smaller looking ants. The building material looked like magma spewed up from the depths or what is known as volcanic bombs , molten material blasted into the air that cools and falls down to earth in a heap .
Following heavy rain , the volcanoes and their vents disappeared , as did the ants . Weeks later, no visible nests and no ants , the site gradually covered in thick grass .
It seemed the ants had relocated or there was a marauding midnight anteater in the yard.
An intensive search of the yard failed to find any area of extensive ant activity like the one which had vanished . Puzzled by this situation ,the blogger exposed himself to attack by a dengue carrying mosquito by bending over the original site , covered in a mat of couch like grass , and closely examined the former pad , without the aid of a Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass.
Nothing . Wait a minute , was that a tiny ant ? Yes . And there was another climbing up the blogger's leg . In the subterranean world beneath the thick grass there appears to be a whole new world adapting to rapidly changing conditions .
