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Ants from a Kilometer Up

January 20, 2008 by myrmecos

So you like insects, but can’t be bothered to get up from your computer to go look for some? Google earth to the rescue!

South of Tucson, Arizona (31°38.097’N 111°03.797’W) I found this lovely aerial image. Visualized from an elevation of about a kilometer and a half, it shows a hill just west of I-19 covered in freshly-sprouted grass. Except, there’s this strange pattern of evenly-spaced polka-dots:

barbatus1.jpg

What could account for the speckles? Alien crop-circles? Bizarre gardening accidents?

Why no, those are the nest discs of one of our most conspicuous insects in the Sonoran desert, the red harvester ant Pogonomyrmex barbatus. Down on the ground it is harder to get a sense of the even spacing of the nests, but the discs are plenty obvious. The ants keep the large area around their nest entrance free of vegetation and other unwanted debris. Below is a photo I took south of the Huachuca mountains, not far from the google earth image above:

barbatus2.jpg

Even closer-up, here are the engineers:

barbatus3.jpg

North American Pogonomyrmex aren’t the only ants whose engineering prowess is visible from low-earth orbit. Some of the more spectacular leafcutter ants in South America make even larger mounds. The image below the fold is also from Google Earth, 1 km over the Paraguayan Chaco (24°06.914’S 57°22.240’W).

The little green speckles are Copernicia palm trees, but what are the white pimples?

vollenweideri1.jpg

They are ant nests, of course! The chaco leafcutter Atta vollenweideri makes earthen mounds several meters wide to house the million-plus ants in the colony. Up close mounds look like so (with a pair of Peace Corps volunteers thrown in for scale):

vollenweideri3.jpg

Here’s the critter responsible:

vollenweideri2.jpg

I’m pretty sure these aren’t the only cases where insect activity can be seen in Google Earth. I’d bet there are places where Australian meat ant nests might show up, or African termite mounds. Plenty of opportunity for the deskbound entomologist to go hunting!

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Posted in Ants, arizona, Insect Links, Paraguay, Science | Tagged Biology Links, entomology, google, google earth | 14 Comments

14 Responses

  1. on January 21, 2008 at 2:59 pm JP

    What an interesting use of Google Earth! I’ll bet one could also see invasive fire ant mounds in the southeastern U.S.


  2. on January 21, 2008 at 3:33 pm Bug Girl

    Very cool!!!


  3. on January 21, 2008 at 5:10 pm czygyny

    Although I’ve never thought to look from orbit to see them, we have black, and sometimes red, harvester ants that create large areas stained white from their feces and discarded seed hulls, and cleared of vegetation.

    I always find their antics fun to watch, but stay out of the way, they are some of the larger ant species for our area, (Northern California) and they carry wicked mandibles!

    We also have some sort of red or brown ants that come out only at night, and they are every bit as large as black carpenter ants. I’ve never found any nest for them. I am assuming they live in or around our white oaks, much like their smaller, stinkier cousins who inhabit the trees in great numbers.

    Thanks for the ‘bird’s eye’ and closeup views of these fascinating insects!

    I love bugs!


  4. on January 21, 2008 at 5:53 pm Mike

    Oy, Google speckles
    Now are signs of insect life
    Alex fosters sloth


  5. on January 23, 2008 at 11:47 pm Neil

    Man, now everyone is going to give up looking for impact craters and go anthill hunting.

    Okay…I’m off to look for termite nests!


  6. on January 30, 2008 at 6:23 am Jean

    That is amazing! My son is fascinated by all things insect and has a large quantity of ant colonies in the kitchen. But the ones in France aren’t as exciting as these!


  7. on February 2, 2008 at 6:56 am Circus of the Spineless #29: Making A Living « Andrea’s Buzzing About:

    […] march (one by one) across the Interwebs, and at his Myrmecos Blog, Alex describes how we can find “Ants from a Kilometer Up” by using Google Earth to find their mounds. (Gee, if you may it that easy, won’t the grad […]


  8. on February 5, 2008 at 7:06 am Photography for insects « Brainripples

    […] insects, photography, and life.  I was most excited about his post demonstrating how some kinds of ant nests are visible using the Google Earth […]


  9. on February 6, 2008 at 9:40 pm Euglossine Bee

    Best insect mashup ever!


  10. on February 6, 2008 at 9:49 pm Ants from a Kilometer Up « Myrmecos Blog « Euglossine Bee

    […] Ants from a Kilometer Up « Myrmecos Blog 7 02 2008 Ants from a Kilometer Up « Myrmecos Blog […]


  11. on February 9, 2008 at 11:43 am GrannyJ

    About a year ago, my SIL discovered large scale ants’ nests on a Googling of the Earth up on the Hualapai reservation in NW Arizona; he pulled a frame off for me, marking the individual ant hills as seen from one mile up…


  12. on April 15, 2009 at 7:06 am More ants from Google Earth « Myrmecos Blog

    […] Google Earth ants here and […]


  13. on May 16, 2009 at 10:44 am cedley

    I’m sure locust plagues would be visible from space too.


  14. on February 4, 2010 at 9:02 am Finding Termites on Google Earth « Myrmecos Blog

    […] insects in Google earth here and […]



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