Convergent Evolutionary Behaviours - Shepherding (Black Ants Milking their version of Cows) INCREDIBLE FOOTAGE)
Watch it on Viewly
In this short macro film we see a Lasius niger (Black ant) worker attending to aphid who colonise a plant to suck the sap. The ants provide protection for the colony of aphid and in return give their sugary excreta on demand from a simple tap of the antennae on the Aphid's behind. You will see in this video a worker ant, in effect milking the aphids for food in a similar way we humans look after a dairy herd of cattle, sheep, goats. An example of convergent evolutionary behaviour across species suggests that this symbiotic relationship is a common feature of nature.
As part of my recent series of posts about convergent evolution and imaginary chymeric creatures, the motivation for this post is my guess that these types of symbiotic relationships would be repeated in other ecosystems, perhaps on other planets too, in a similar way by other pairs of related species, whatever they may be or how they might manifest. Mammals-mammals in our case. Insect-insect in this one. Who knows what on Kepler 452b ?
Location - Hackney East London - Panasonic Lumix Gf2 with a manual Tamron SP 300mm macro lens with micro 4/3rds adapter