Jet Black Ants

The Jet Black Ant, Lasius fuliginosus

There’s a colony of ants in Shelford - and I’m not going to tell you where - called Jet Black Ants. I first found them when I saw a long trail of ants walking and running through the undergrowth, and decided to investigate further.  I followed the trail of ants to a fissure in an old hawthorn, part of a rather run-down hedge. These ants nest in cavities in rotten tree trunks, or in a hedge-bank. The ant trail leads from the nest to a selected tree - and I haven’t yet discovered which one - where they farm aphids. Aphids feed on tree sap, are interested in the protein-building amino acids in the sap, but largely uninterested in the sugars. So the sugars are excreted from their rear end. Ants, being smart creatures, have learned to  find and “milk” a flock of aphids. This isn’t bad news for the aphids. The ants protect them, in more ways than one. They see off predators. And if they find a fungus-affected aphid, they remove it so the others are not infected. It’s a symbiosis - works for the ants, works for the aphids.

These ants really are jet black, and quite shiny. They have a distinctive heart-shaped head.

The nest in the tree cavity is made of a sort of paper - chewed up wood glued together with saliva. I’d love to see one, but there’s not much chance of that. But I’m just interested to know these ants exist, with their own special way of doing things. Nature is so endlessly fascinating.

Version 1, uploaded August 2026