|
|
|
|
Although Project Atta is an independent research project, it is currently working in conjunction with Acadiana Preparatory School and the St. Landry Parish EAGLE Program. Acadiana Preparatory School (APS) is a small private, college preparatory school of about 300 students located in the city of Opelousas, Louisiana, The EAGLE Program, directed by Mrs. Winnie Auzenne, is an educational program designed to help gifted students meet needs not ordinarily fulfilled within a normal classroom setting.
After two hours of driving and a breakfast stop at McDonalds along the way, we entered the gates of Hodges Gardens. Within a few minutes Mr. Leonard and Mr. Bruce arrived, and together we all began our trek into the heart of Hodges Gardens--an immense forest of long-leaf pine. The road leading to the mounds was not paved and very rugged, so everyone piled into Mr. Lombas', Mr. Bruce's, and Mr. Leonard's trucks for the ride. I soon discovered exactly how long and rugged the road was, as Mark, Beau, and I made the trip sitting in the back of Mr. Leonard's truck. For a good 15 minutes we sat in the truck bed, nearly losing our seats with every pothole and dodging leafy branches of encroaching shrubs.
I had no trouble seeing the mound when we reached it. The central part of it was set on an embankment rising approximately 5 feet from the level of the road. Even in the middle of the road there were many nest entrances, but the greater part of the nest sat atop the embankment and trailed off into the surrounding forest. The team and I unloaded the equipment we had brought along: tweezers, our specially-designed cages, collection bottles, shovels, insect repellant, gloves, and test tubes for alcohol specimens. Of course we all had a good laugh about having to tuck our pants into our tube socks--we were making a stunning fashion statement. Everyone armed with gloves, shovels, and insect repellant on our shoes, we began the excavation.
At first the soil was hard and packed. After breaking through this surface, however, we found the soil to be sandy and easy to remove. Soon we hit the uppermost tunnels of the mound. Ants of all sizes came pouring out of the tunnels. As we dug deeper, the nest entrances behind us (and there were many) opened and our feet were flooded by ants. Luckily the insect repellant deterred the ants from climbing our legs--most of them avoided our shoes altogether.
It was not long until we had dug a wide and rather deep pit in the mound. Judging from the fresh soil built up around the outermost nest entrances, I knew that the colony was still active. However, we had not yet found a single fungus garden. Although ants were everywhere, I knew that the couple thousand on the surface must be nothing compared to the literal hundreds of thousands deeper inside the mound. It seemed that the colony was spread over such a large area that the whole worker force could not be motivated to defense at once, even though we were digging a huge pit directly into the heart of the mound. Then, after cutting through a few tree roots and digging a little further, we found our first fungus garden. The chamber was basically spherical and somewhat larger than a baseball. Inside were ants carrying still green leaf fragments and a mass of spongy, gray fungus. I reached my gloved hand into the chamber in an attempt to remove some of the fungus, but it crumbled in my hand. I did succeed in allowing the ants to crawl all over my glove, where they clung ferociously with clenched jaws. Fortunately, they were content to bite and hold on,and made no effort to climb up my arm.
After beating off my gloves, I examined the fungus I had removed. Amongst the gray clumps I found minute worker ants so small they hardly looked like Atta texana. I was stuffing some of this fungus and these smaller workers into a collection bottle when one of my colleagues called me to come quickly and look in the fungus garden. I stopped bottling the fungus fragments and dashed back to the pit. As I did, a huge virgin queen was crawling out of the exposed chamber. She was the largest native ant I had ever seen--nearly an inch long--and covered with rusty-brown "hair." Her dark amber wings extended well over the tip of her robust gaster. She moved around rather clumsily, so we were able to photograph her. In the end, she turned out to be the prize specimen of the entire trip.
The remainder of the dig went well, but was not as eventful. We continued to dig, but could not find another chamber. After nearly four hours of digging (interspersed with several water breaks), the team called it quits. We re-filled the monstrous pit we had dug, which took relatively little time. Mr. Bruce, Mr. Leonard, and Mr. Lombas kindly transported us back to the "civilized" section of the garden. Hot and sweaty, we took a walk through the shady nature trails of the gardens and talked about our outing. Although we did not bring home a captive queenright colony, the trip was still a definite success.
©2000
The Wild Ones
c/o Wildlife Trust
61 Route 9W, Palisades, NY 10964-8000
Tel: 845.365.8337 Fax: 845.365.8177
