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Exploring the nest of the weaver ants and find out the amazing secrets they hide in there, they are known to build nests by weaving the leaves of the tress and in this video i be finding out what they actually keep in their nests.







Weaver Ants

Scientific name: Oecophylla
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Order: Hymenopterans
Rank: Genus
Tribe: Oecophyllini; Emery, 1895


Weaver ants live on trees and are known for their unique nest building behavior where workers construct nests by weaving together leaves using larval silk. Colonies can be extremely large consisting of more than a hundred nests spanning numerous trees and contain more than half a million workers. Weaver ant workers exhibit a clear bimodal size distribution, with almost no overlap between the size of the minor and major workers.The major workers are approximately 8–10 mm (0.31–0.39 in) in length and the minors approximately half the length of the majors. Major workers forage, defend, maintain, and expand the colony whereas minor workers tend to stay within the nests where they care for the brood and 'milk' scale insects in or close to the nests.



Distribution :
O. longinoda is distributed in the Afrotropics and O. smaragdina from India and Sri Lanka in southern Asia, through southeastern Asia to northern Australia and Melanesia.In Australia, Oecophylla smaragdina is found in the tropical coastal areas as far south as Broome in Western Australia and across the coastal tropics of the Northern Territory down to Yeppoon in Queensland.


Social Organization :
Weaver ant colonies are founded by one or more mated females (queens).[14] A queen lays her first clutch of eggs on a leaf and protects and feeds the larvae until they develop into mature workers. The workers then construct leaf nests and help rear new brood laid by the queen. As the number of workers increases, more nests are constructed and colony productivity and growth increase significantly. Workers perform tasks that are essential to colony survival, including foraging, nest construction, and colony defense. The exchange of information and modulation of worker behavior that occur during worker-worker interactions are facilitated by the use of chemical and tactile communication signals.


Nest building :
The ants...one green as a leaf, and living upon trees, where it built a nest, in size between that of a man's head and his fist, by bending the leaves together, and gluing them with whitish paperish substances which held them firmly together. In doing this their management was most curious: they bend down four leaves broader than a man's hand, and place them in such a direction as they choose. This requires a much larger force than these animals seem capable of; many thousands indeed are employed in the joint work. I have seen as many as could stand by one another, holding down such a leaf, each drawing down with all his might, while others within were employed to fasten the glue. How they had bent it down I had not the opportunity of seeing, but it was held down by main strength, I easily proved by disturbing a part of them, on which the leaf bursting from the rest, returned to its natural situation, and I had an opportunity of trying with my finger the strength of these little animals must have used to get it down.


Relationship with humans :
Large colonies of Oecophylla weaver ants consume significant amounts of food, and workers continuously kill a variety of arthropods (primarily other insects) close to their nests. Insects are not only consumed by workers, but this protein source is necessary for brood development. Because weaver ant workers hunt and kill insects that are potentially harmful plant pests, trees harboring weaver ants benefit from having decreased levels of herbivory. They have traditionally been used in biological control in Chinese and Southeast Asian citrus orchards from at least 400 AD. Many studies have shown the efficacy of using weaver ants as natural biocontrol agents against agricultural pests.The use of weaver ants as biocontrol agents has especially been effective for fruit agriculture, particularly in Australia and southeast Asia. Fruit trees harboring weaver ants produce higher quality fruits, show less leaf damage by herbivores, and require fewer applications of synthetic pesticides.They do on the other hand protect the scale insects which they 'milk' for honeydew. In several cases the use of weaver ants has nonetheless been shown to be more efficient than applying chemical insecticides and at the same time cheaper, leaving farmers with increased net incomes and more sustainable pest control.




For more info :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaver_ant