Down in the leaf litter of woodland and heath, ants are busy foraging. There are no less than eight species on Mousehold, thanks to its varied habitats.
Ant hills are visible evidence of ant life on the Heath. The best place to see them is near Gurney Road, where the Yellow Meadow Ant has created some notable mounds which are likely to have been here for many years.
The Yellow Meadow Ant is a subterranean species. Ant hills are built with soil carried up from below, crumb by crumb. Eggs are hatched and the pupa are tended in a maze of tunnels centred on the egg-laying queen.
[Image courtesy Vanna Bartlett]
Ant hills are purposefully built to catch sunlight and so raise soil temperature in the complex of brood chambers within. Yellow Meadow Ants are tiny ecosystem engineers, creating islands of microhabitat within grassland and so adding to plant diversity.
The Green Woodpecker is a keen exploiter of ant hills, using their powerful beaks to break into them then their long tongues to lick up the ants and eggs.
Eight ant species have been found on Mousehold. These include the Woodland Red Ant which nests in rotting wood, soft earth and leaf litter, and the Common Black Ant which likes to nest under warm surfaces – they also build untidy piles of soil around grass stalks.
Foraging ants can sometimes be seen climbing up tree trunks and also collecting honey-dew from aphids in sycamore trees. Rabbits often use ant hills as territorial markers by scent marking and depositing their droppings there.
All images courtesy the author, unless otherwise indicated.
