EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Green Ants at the Nest

Green Ant (Oecophylla smaragdina), Family Formicidae
Blythe Homestead, Litchfield National Park, Northern Territory, Australia

Explanation:  Here in tropical "Top End" of Northern Territory, Australia, I happened upon this curious bundle of leaves that seemed to have been woven into a giant cocoon.  Upon closer inspection, I found that I had discovered a nest of green ants ... industrious tree-dwelling insects of these humid woodlands.

Also known, perhaps more appropriately, as weaver ants, the species does indeed create nests by stitching together leaves of trees, using silk produced by the larval young.  And sometimes green ants can be red, so "weaver ant" does seem like a better name.  
  

Here is shown how some of the leaves used to create the nest have died on the stalk but still provide protective walls.  

These ants appear half red, half green.
The species is found widely in Australia, and southern to southeast Asia.

We had encountered green ants in a previous EPOW episode (with video).

Nests of green ants are often occupied by spiders and other species.

This nest of green ants has found a home, here in
the otherwise abandoned Blythe Homestead and its
Mt. Tolmer Mine, in tropical northern Australia.