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To avoid the jaws, sting, and other defences of the invertebrates, anteaters have adopted the feeding strategy of licking up large numbers of ants and termites as quickly as possible – an anteater normally spends about a minute at a nest before moving on to another – and a giant anteater has to visit up to 200 nests per day to consume the ...
Some beetles specialise in feeding on the brood of particular species of ants. An example is the coccinellid Diomus; larvae of Diomus thoracicus in French Guiana specialise in the nests of the invasive ant species Wasmannia auropunctata. [16] One of the predominant predators on ants are other ants, especially the army ants and their close ...
Top: An ant in Mozambique Bottom: An ant-mimicking spider, Myrmarachne Ant mimicry or myrmecomorphy is mimicry of ants by other organisms; it has evolved over 70 times. Ants are abundant all over the world, and potential predators that rely on vision to identify their prey, such as birds and wasps, normally avoid them, because they are either unpalatable or aggressive.
The genus Myrmecia is among the most primitive of all known living ants, and ants of the genus are considered specialist predators. [ 106 ] [ 107 ] Unlike most ants, workers are solitary hunters, and do not lay pheromone trails ; nor do they recruit others to food.
The short-beaked echidna's diet consists mostly of ants and termites, while the Zaglossus (long-beaked) species typically eat worms and insect larvae. [11] The tongues of long-beaked echidnas have sharp, tiny spines that help them capture their prey. [ 11 ]
Typical detritivorous animals include millipedes, springtails, woodlice, dung flies, slugs, many terrestrial worms, sea stars, sea cucumbers, fiddler crabs, and some sedentary marine Polychaetes such as worms of the family Terebellidae. Detritivores can be classified into more specific groups based on their size and biomes.
Researchers have uncovered fossils of giant predator worms, some of Earth’s earliest carnivorous animals that roamed the seas 518 million years ago.
Mealybugs only tend to be serious pests in the presence of ants because the ants protect them from predators and parasites. [2] Mealybugs are also a vector of viruses in grapevines, spreading grapevine leafroll and grapevine red blotch viruses. [3] Mealybugs also infest some species of carnivorous plant such as Sarracenia (pitcher plants).