Carnage upon a willow stem

[Kveldssanger]

Scenes of utter devastation today, on a willow stem. Bear in mind this stem is around 0.75cm in diameter at most.

 

Ants + very small bug (aphid?) + bigger bug. Ants looked like they were predating upon the tiny things, and perhaps that other insect is as well was feasting? Anyone able to tell me exactly what's going on, here?

 

Ta.

[timbernut]

Not an expert but I think the ants farm/ milk the aphids for a liquid and the other bug looks like a robber fly of some sort ( bit like a wolf in a flock o sheep)

[Kveldssanger]

Oh wow - that's really quite interesting! Will have a little read up.

[spandit]

It's one of the reasons I like ants...

[Starscream]

Yeah I read this somewhere... Apparently ants are the only other creature(other than humans) to farm other creatures. The aphids secrete a sweet nectar and the ants go wild for it. I sat and watched them on a rose once, very interesting.

[Taupotreeman]

Ants will farm and protect aphids in order to get the honeydew. The ants will generally attack anything that comes anywhere near their food source but some insects can mimic the pheromones of the ants and basically sneak in and predate undetected.

[diervek]

I had wooly aphid on my Apple tree and used an army of ladybird and lacewing larvae to deal with them.. It was crazy to watch. the ants were a pain protecting their livestock, I had to wrap some double sided tape at dbh to stop the buggers .