The Daily Ant

Imagine that you are a mango farmer in Thailand. You’re happy with your mango crop, and happily head off to the market to sell your delicious fruit. There, you expect to sell out, but instead find that few passerby are interested in your produce. To add antsult to injury, you look at a nearby stall and see that larvae of the weaver ant, Oecophylla, are flying off the shelves! It seems that shoppers simply love the white, squishy, nutritious baby ants. What do you do?

If you’re a smart farmer, like the one featured below, you realize that weaver ants love nesting in mango trees, and you get to work attracting the hardworking insects to your farmland. Thailand Correspondant Pitoon Kongnoo shared this story with us, and sent along a report by Thai PBS on the antgenious farmer. The video is in Thai, but the footage is fairly self-explanatory even for those whose Thai is limited to “มด”. Enjoy!