A Homeschool Mom's Education on Antlions

     As I pinned a shirt to the wash line, I saw Tyler coming to find me, a reading book in his hand. He needed to read aloud, but noticing I wasn’t ready for that, he deviated from the sidewalk and scuffed his foot in the dirt beside the house. He poked around for a minute, then asked, “Have you seen these bugs?”

     Considering they were hidden behind a stubby tree in the flowerbed, I hadn’t.

     “You really should see them. They make holes in the dirt and if you drop an ant into the hole, dirt pops up like a little volcano.”

     My eyebrows popped up, too, and soon I crouched behind the tree in the flowerbed while my young entomologist gave me a further education on antlions. Had I noticed them previously, I would have assumed that the pockmarks in the dirt were created by water dropping from the eaves. But, no. They were live traps, made by antlion larvae.

     “See? The walls of these holes are so steep that the ants can’t get back out.”

     We dropped an ant into one of the craters and watched it scrabble at the smooth sides. Then, suddenly, he said with his voice rising in excitement, “Look! The dirt is popping up!” Indeed! From the center of the hole, dirt was being kicked up a centimeter high, as if a mini popcorn popper was at work. This action helps knock the ant into mandibles waiting at the bottom of the hole. The antlion was having his lunch.

     It was my first encounter with antlions. Impressed with both the bug and my son’s knowledge of them, I changed the day’s penmanship assignment from copy work to writing a paragraph about this intriguing insect.

     As he worked, he said, “Mom, don’t you think antlions would make an interesting blog post?”

     I did. And so, with his permission, here is a picture and a small report, both courtesy of my son.

Backyard Volcanoes

Tyler Nolt, age 8

There are so many interesting bugs in Ghana.* This bug makes his house like a bowl of a funnel. If you put an ant in it, or if an ant crawls in it, it cannot climb out because the sides are so smooth. Then dirt shoots out like lava from a big volcano when the bug eats them. The name of this bug is called an antlion.

Tyler's picture of the lions' dens.

Our very own antlion.
Photo credits to Adriel.

*Antlions are found worldwide. In the States, the larvae are sometimes called doodlebugs because of the squiggly lines they make in sand. The adults look like a damselfly.