Sue Ellen Rose Metro, age 15,

Are there really ant cows?

Ant cows are aphid insects, or plant lice. The countless little aphids are humble relatives of the lordly cicada which Andy wrote about a few weeks ago. All these insects are plant eaters and most of them are pests who dine on our crops, gardens and favorite trees. Colonies of small green aphids team over buds and twigs, sipping the juices. Each type of aphid selects the kind of plant it prefers.

As it sips, the aphid gives off a sweet syrup through a pair of tubes at the tail end of its body. This is honeydew, the favorite cake, ice cream, and candy of the ant world. Any ant will take the honeydew from an aphid. This pleases the ant and also the aphid who tends to clog up in his own sweetness,

the cornfield ant goes even further. This busy black insect carries out a plan to keep a plentiful supply of honeydew right in her pantry. Come fall she scurries around gathering up the new laid eggs of the corn‑root aphid. She totes them to a safe place in. her nest. Through the winter, she moves them from one warm chamber to another.

Come spring, the ant is on hand when the aphid eggs hatch. She carries the new babies to a tunnel by a knotweed root. Here they feed, though this is not their favorite food. This is ‑ready when the young spring corn sets its roots down into the ground. Then along comes the busybody cornfield ant and carries her tame aphids to a chamber by a corn root.

Now the aphids thrive and give off their honeydew. Cornfield ants arrive to take the sweet syrup. These ants tend their aphids as a dairyman tends his stock. They protect these domesticated aphids from their enemies, Sometimes they even stroke the aphids to milk out the honeydew. No wonder we call these tame aphids ant cows.  And the milkmaid cornfield ant is an expert, though miniature, dairy farmer.

This is one of the fascinating stories of the ant world. However, those little ant cows steal the sap from our corn crops. To the farmer, this ant dairy farming is a pests

The pesky aphids have an interesting life cycle. What’s more., if it were not for their enemies, they could produce enough descendents to destroy all the plants in the world.  If all her children lived, one aphid could have several million descendents during a single summer.

The mother lays a few eggs in the spring. They are all females and ready to lay eggs of their own in a few days. The broods appear every few days through the summer, all of them wingless females. Come falls the broods are winged and mixed male and female. The eggs laid by this group usually sleep through the winter. Let’s welcome the graceful lacewing insects the aphid lion. Her grubs food on aphids and help keep down the plant lice population.