These thorny trees had developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the local acacia ant: The trees provide shelter and food for the ants and in return they use their stinging bite to ...

The ants' impact extends beyond lions, for instance, to endangered black rhinos, which have relied on the now-dwindling acacia trees for food, Goheen, at the University of Wyoming, says.

The story of how tiny ants managed to push lions to kill more African buffalo shows what can happen when an invasive species arrives.

When the invasive big-headed ant finds native acacia ants, they surround them and attack, leaving the acacia ants’ tree home undefended and vulnerable to elephants.

Native acacia ants are killed by the smaller invasive big-headed ants, leaving whistling-thorn trees defenseless against elephants. Credit: Pat Milligan When people talk about the interconnectedness ...

When big-headed ants come to an acacia ant nest, they wreak havoc–killing and eliminating their native competition. And unlike their native counterparts, big-headed ants do nothing to defend ...

These thorny trees had developed a mutually beneficial relationship with the local acacia ant: The trees provide shelter and food for the ants and in return they use their stinging bite to ...

When building a bird nest in ant territory, the best defense could be an offensive fungus. Swollen-thorn acacia trees are aggressively defended by multiple species of ants. And yet, several ...

Impact on Lions’ Hunting Grounds The decline of acacia ants due to the invasion of big-headed ants has allowed elephants to destroy more acacia trees.

The trees feed and house the acacia ants, and in exchange, the ants attack elephants that try to snack on—and sometimes uproot—the trees.

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 ...

In Central America, the bullhorn acacia is guarded by mutualistic ants that, in addition to living in hollowed-out swollen thorns and feeding on nectar, feed on nutrient-rich food bodies produced ...