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Ant mystery (1 Viewer)

Surreybirder

Ken Noble
Can anyone help me with a mystery? In our garden, at the front, we have a raised bed with a few shrubs. The rest is covered in stone chippings. Today, my wife noticed hundreds of dead red ants there. We have no idea what killed them – it wasn’t any chemical that we have used. Then she spotted that a small number of black ants were removing the bodies. I just don’t know what is going on. If there had been a pitched battle between a red and a black colony, you’d think that there would be dead black ants but we couldn’t see any. It has us perplexed.

See photos.

And if anyone can ID the species, I'd like to know.
 

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Well, as no one has replied....
This is my theory: in the very heavy rain we had recently, some lower parts of the nest got flooded and a small proportion of the ants drowned (ants are normally very good at surviving almost any natural disasters - they can even survive in a microwave!). The survivors then threw out the bodies so that they wouldn't decompose in the nest. The black ants then arrived to benefit from the fast food source.
Well, it's at least plausible isn't it?
 
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