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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
It’s the insect version of squeezing glue from a bottle. This adult weaver in Australia holds a silk-producing larva in its jaws, spreading the larva’s sticky secretions to bind leaves for the colony nest. Few animals match such intricate homemaking techniques.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
As weaver ants build a nest in Malaysia, they must pull one leaf toward another. A long body—about a third of an inch—is a boon, as each ant grabs on to adjacent leaf edges with feet and jaws. If one body isn’t sufficient, the insects interlock to form chains.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
Weaver nests can be spacious: This one in Cambodia is eight inches wide; others reach a foot or two. A colony can distribute the weight of a half million workers, equal to that of a large house cat, by maintaining upwards of a hundred nests spread over multiple trees.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
Save the queen! If disturbed by an intruder, minor workers—the caste of ants that tends to her majesty—envelop the matriarch (here, in Australia) to protect her from harm. The queen is the grower of the super-organism, producing tens of millions of eggs over her life span of several years.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
With speed and sheer numbers, weaver ants can overwhelm and pin scorpions and other large prey. These hunters in Cambodia will carry the scorpion to the nest and tear off bits to feed the larvae, which need all the protein they can get.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
An adult weaver ant tends to a crop of scale insects in Kirirom National Park, Cambodia. The red bugs, when stroked, release drops of honeydew, a vital source of carbohydrates for the ant.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
A roasted chicken dish in Angkor Wat, Cambodia, includes a tapenade of fish paste, garlic, and minced weaver ants—a delicacy in much of Asia and parts of Australia.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
Weaver ants rear up aggressively at a looming photographer.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
They can tear apart a well-armored African driver ant at least twice their size. Whatever the threat, weaver ants fight together: The first defenders stand tall and emit pheromones that draw their sisters to battle.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
A theridiid spider snags an ant (far right, green abdomen) with a silk line, then descends on a second line to claim its prize.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
A Cosmophasis jumping spider (at left) has infiltrated a weaver nest in Australia using chemical mimicry. By eating weaver ant larvae, the spider can take on and emit the scent of a colony and then feed unnoticed among its prey. But the spider cannot use that colony’s scent to fool a different colony.
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Photograph by Mark W. Moffett
A Myrmarachne jumping spider stalks a weaver ant (right). The spider so resembles the ant—which tastes foul to some animals—that the spider’s usual predators often pass it by.
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