Ant Lions

You may never have heard of ant lions, but I love them.  They are so weird!  They look like this,

but you have probably never seen one even if you have them around the yard.  That's because they live most of their lives just below a 1 to1.5" conical pit in fine dry soil that looks like this:

They make the pits by grabbing a grain of sand in their jaws and snapping their heads to toss it away.  The pit grows deeper until any new tossed sand causes a another to fall to the bottom.  I have them in 2 places in the yard.  Under the front and back roof eaves, there is dusty old sand that suits them perfectly.

I first noticed the pits a couple decades ago and wondered what they were.  A bit of searching educated me about them.  I only had a few then.  But I noticed more each year.  This year, there are almost 3 dozen pits in the front spot in a bed near the garage door (their best location).

Well, I find ants annoying.  OK, they are actually very valuable in nature, but sometimes they get into the house.  And in a way, I really don't mind them near the house foundation (they scare off termites).  But inside, I don't like them so much...  

They eat ants (mostly) that fall into the pit and are grabbed and pulled under.  The loose dry soil prevents the ant from crawling out (a tiny avalanche) and the activity alerts the ant lion to reach up and grab the ant for dinner.

They really love the dry soil protected from rain by over-hanging roof eaves.  In nature, everytime it rains, they have to rebuild their pit.  So rain-protected spots are precious to them.  And they mature to an adult like a small dragonfly.

I have seen some flying around, but didn't realize until recently they they were the adults.  I recognize them now.  I thought it was just another dragonfly or damselfly.

The adults feed on nectar and pollen, so they are not harmful and are quite pretty.  So I and the ant-lions have a kind of a deal.  I leave the fine sandy soil alone in their 4' long dry spot and they eat few ants and create adults who fly around harmlessly to me.

I "upped" the game yesterday.  I noticed a scout ant wandering around in the house and was annoyed.  But it occurred to me that an ant lion might appreciate it.  I grabbed the ant with a tweezer and dropped it into a pit.  WHAM!  The antlion grabbed it.  Fascinating!  

I decided to help them.  I scatterred some fruit and meat scraps that would attract ants (some love sugar, some love fats) around the ant lion pits.  Maybe those will attract some.  Don't worry about the ants.  There are about 20 quadrillion ants on the Earth at any given time.

Well, ant lions are a lot more interesting than ants...  And I tend to favor predators that aren't a threat to me...  😎