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March 19, 2006
Correction: Why Are the Trees White?
Some of you may remember seeing photographs of trees in a past entry which have the first few feet up from the ground seemingly painted white. Mark Allen left a comment asking what was up with the white trees. I answered him in a personal email that this was probably because the drivers here are idiots and that is done to make them more visible so that people don't drive into them.
Recently, Shawn heard another answer that is far more interesting.
He heard this from Charles Nuckolls (pronounced "NACK-els"), a taxi driver that we often call directly and who, being born in Baltimore, is fluent in English. He explained to Shawn that the stuff on the trees is not actually paint but cement, which somehow protects the trees from this really strange type of ant that we have down here known as leafcutter ants.
If you don't know about leafcutter ants, I strongly suggest you follow the link given above and read the brief Wikipedia article on them. If nothing else, just go and look at the pictures. These ants are seen all over the place here, in long caravans toting enormous (relative to the ants themselves) pieces of leaves that they have cut from trees. They carry all these pieces back to their nests where a specific kind of fungus grows on them. This fungus is what they eat. Basically, they are fungus farmers and the fungus feeds on the leaves. Our friends here have seen them strip an entire tree overnight, and all those bits of leaves get tucked away underground, which gives you an idea of the magnitude of their nests and how much fungus they're growing underground.
Go ahead. Read the article.
Now I know you're asking why cement on the trees would prevent these ants from stripping the leaves from them, and at this time, I don't have an answer for you. I'll try to find out and post the answer in a follow-up entry.
Posted by crispy at March 19, 2006 02:13 AM