What Harvester Ants Eat

Of course, the name 'harvester' suggests that the ants only eat plant material but that's not necessarily the case. They will eat pretty much anything that contains a bit of nutrition. They do eat seeds in abundance however, mainly from grasses. Many species of these grasses will actually grow on the spoil heap of the ants nest, so the ants don’t have far to go to find their food. They will also eat the seeds from numerous other plants as well as the nectar and pollen from their flowers.

Carnivory

A wide range of carnivorous behaviors is reported for harvester ants. These include the feeding of unhatched eggs by the queen to her first brood of offspring and, in the Florida harvester, the feeding of special sterile eggs, laid by the workers, to juveniles. These are called trophic eggs and this behaviour is unique to this species. There are no reports of cannibalism in any harvester ant species so the ants in your ant farm should be quite safe from each other… Termites, many castes of which are soft-bodied and defenceless, make up about two thirds of their meat intake. Other larger insects, such as grasshoppers and crickets form the remainder, often the ants will remove the soft tissue from the inside of the insect’s exoskeleton if they cannot move the entire insect to the nest.

Foraging behavior

The most common foraging strategy is individual foraging. In individual foraging, singleton workers will leave the ant nest to forage for food alone. It is thought that this was the first hunting strategy to evolve and consequently it is the least successful in terms of losing ants in the field. An individual ant is much more likely to be predated upon by another insect or bird than is an organised group. This leads us on to group foraging behavior which is quite extraordinary. Many species, including the Florida, western and red harvester exhibit this behaviour and this is one of the reasons for their success. Occasionally, you may find an ant column that's over a hundred feet long and a couple of inches wide. Imagine what they will do to any small animal that gets in the way. When a group attack takes place the insect (it’s usually an insect) is cut up and taken back to the nest. Often different ants will assume different roles when dealing with prey, from attacking, to dismembering and even digging underneath large prey to make it easier to move. The foraging armies of harvester ants are of course, terrifying to many animals, both large and small, but not all foraging ventures result in success. The scouts fail to come back with any food about 40% of the time. So the ants in your ant farm ought to be eternally grateful that you are providing them with food without their having to move from their doorstep.

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