The ant acacia is a small, thorny tree found in different parts of Costa Rica. It is famous, not for its impressive thorns or its ability to thrive in harsh environmental conditions, but because of ...

Feb. 15 (UPI) --Acacia ants have an exceptional sense of vibration. As a new study revealed, the ants, which live in and on Africa's acacia trees, can tell the difference between the vibrational ...

In the 1960s, Penn biologist Dan Janzen, as part of earning his Ph.D., re-described what has become a classic example of biological mutualism: the obligate relationship between acacia-ants and ...

Acacia trees are a prominent feature of the East African savannah. They're also a classic example of the long-standing and complex relationships between plants and insects, in this case acacia ants.

Ants known to defend certain species of Acacia trees from elephant predation deter the massive herbivores so effectively that they are impacting entire savanna ecosystems, according to a study ...

The story of how tiny ants managed to push lions to kill more African buffalo shows how the arrival of an invasive species can affect multiple animals that seem to have no connections. At an animal ...

NEW YORK — A tiny invasive ant muscled into a Kenyan savannah and sparked such a dramatic transformation in the landscape that even the local lions changed the way they hunt, according to research ...

This is a preview. Log in through your library . Abstract We experimentally determined whether the low density of antlion larvae found in ant-acacia clearings is due to high levels of ant predation or ...

Detailed descriptions, habitat preferences, geographic ranges, and representative specimens are given for the 13 ant-acacia species and hybrids from Mexico, Central America, and South America. A ...

A new study explores a disruptive force in the delicate African ecosystem that holds consequences for even top predators like lions. The big-headed ant, first recorded on the island of Mauritius, has ...

Researchers find that the ants of the acacia tree are tipped off to the presence of herbivores by vibrations that run throughout the trees when an animal gets too close or begins to chew. As a result, ...

Ant-acacia plants attract ants by offering specialized food and hollow thorns in which the ants live, while the ant colony in turn defends its acacia against herbivores. This mutualistic relationship ...