A strange bird stalks dangerous army ants, poaching what the marching host misses

A strange bird stalks dangerous army ants, poaching what the marching host missesPublished Sun, Oct 14, 2012 08:00 PM
Modified Sun, Oct 14, 2012 08:39 PM



PHOTOS BY CHRISTIAN ZIEGLER - New York Times

By Natalie Angier - New York Times

BARRO COLORADO ISLAND, Panama -- Here in the understory of the Panamanian rain forest, the best way to find the elusive and evolutionarily revealing spotted antbird is to stare at your boots.

For one thing, if you don’t tuck in your pant legs to protect against chiggers and ticks, you will end up a color photo in a dermatology textbook. For another, sooner or later – OK, many hiking hours later – you will finally step into a swarm of army ants boiling out across the forest floor.

At that point you should step right back out of the swarm and start looking for the characteristic flitting and hopping of the thrush-size antbird, listening for its vibrato “peee-ti peee-it” call. Because wherever there are army ants out on a hunting raid, antbirds are almost sure to follow.

The birds are not foolish enough to try to eat army ants, which have fierce mandibles and are militantly cohesive. Instead, they hope to skim off a percentage of the ants’ labor, by snatching up any grasshoppers, beetles, spiders or small lizards that may jump to the side in a frantic attempt to elude the avalanche of predatory ants.

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http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/10/14/2405704/a-strange-bird-stalks-dangerous.html#storylink=cpy