Working together by Minghui Yuan, China ©
There were several big trees near Minghui’s hotel in the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in Yunnan Province, China, and he’d noticed green tree ants on the trunks and was fascinated by their behaviour. This species of ant builds its nest in the tree crown, are ferocious by nature and good at catching all kinds of insects. One morning Minghui noticed a group of ants working together in perfect unity to restrain a green katydid. These remarkable ants don’t always kill, they have been observed ‘farming’ certain types of insects, including leaf hoppers. The ants offer leaf hoppers protection from predators and parasites so that they can feed on the sweet sap the leaf hoppers excrete.