To The Ants

On Sunday, we took a trip to the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. Their current exhibit is Ants: Hidden Worlds Revealed. They have six colonies of ants on display - Harvester ants, Carpenter ants, Honeypot ants, Argentine ants, Leaf Cutter ants, and meat eating Army ants. We found out that the feeding of the Army ants happened daily at 2:15, so we planned our entire day around this undoubtedly bloody event. We whirled Sarah's carriage through the rain and got to the site around 2 pm- just enough time to get in place to witness the savagery. Our dreams were dashed when we found an Army ant display case that contained only what looked like torch markings. No Army ants! We were never able to get a complete story of what happened, but it looked like the ants had to be taken out with fire.

The day was not a complete waste. In fact, it was still great! The other ants did not disappoint. Here's a view of some Honeypot ants:


What looks like hanging drops of liquid are actually the abdomens of the ants. Some of the ants get the honor of becoming living storage systems of nectar. They're fed the sweet liquid by the other ants in the colony and in turn, their bellies swell up and store the food until it's needed. It looks very uncomfortable to me. The other ants don't seem to know when enough is enough either. We saw the remnants of one ant who had exploded from too much nectar. Now, that's a bad day.

When we couldn't take the excitement of the ants anymore, we moved on to the aquarium section of the museum. Sarah could not get enough of the giant fish. She spent a good chunk of time trying to grab one. Here she is stalking her prey:




Here's the one that got away:



This was a great way to spend a rainy afternoon. To cap it off, we came home, boiled some crabs, and had our own feeding frenzy. The Army ants would have been proud.