The ants are up to something again. Now they are stealing prey from my Drosera. Don’t they know carnivorous plants eat ants? Apparently, no one told these ants. I was recording a fly trapped on a drosera spatulata, when I noticed an ant under the fly. It wasn’t just one ant, but a small army and they are pulling on the fly. Eventually, the ants pulled the fly off of the drosera, leaving the fly’s wings and legs on the plant. (I had spotted ants stealing prey from d capensis last year. https://drmayhem12.wixsite.com/insidepitcherplants/post/ants-are-robbing-my-plants-ants-steal-prey-from-d-capensis-the-ants-are-up-to-something-again)
When a sticky trichome gets in the the way, just bite it off (around 4:10)
ants trying to clip the fly's wings. (around 15:45)
In this shorter video, the ants are still working on removing the fly from the drosera. One of the ants gets stuck on a sticky trichome (around 1:45), but that hardly slows it down. It just turns around and nips off the trichome at its base. The ant can be seen with the trichome still tuck to its abdomen.
The ants had a bigger problem trying to move the ant off of the drosera. The fly’s body barely fits between the leaves and the plant’s sticky trichomes got in the way. The sticky bit didn’t bother the ants, they just nip off the trichome at it's base to make way for their stolen fly.
This guy got his antenna stuck on a trichome but it just pulled itself off.
It took the ants forever to get the fly off the drosera. Eventually, they called in back-up. A giant worker ant showed up and help get the stolen fly safely below the drosera leaves.
Once they had their stolen prey below the drosera, they took off like the professional thieves they are. I last spotted the fly on the back of a single ant. He was moving so fast, I lost him amongst the other plants.
For scale. This video was recorded on the drosera spatulata rosette above the penny.
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