Cocktail Ants of Ubizane:

Many of the trees here at Ubizane have Cocktail Ant’s Nest in them. If you haven’t seen them in the Ubizane trees, next time you are here look out for large mass of what looks like mud in the tree branches.

Cocktail Ants get their name from the behavior they exhibit once threatened. The cocktail ant will raise its abdomen over its head when alarmed or disturbed, they are also known to excrete a sticky white rather unpleasant smelling liquid from the gland at the tip of their abdomen.

Feeding on sugary substances and building their nests out of vegetative matter, Cocktail Ants are arboreal, meaning they live in trees. The nest itself is made up of chewed up vegetative matter that is mixed with a secretion from the jaw glands of the worker ants, it is very thin and black in colour due to the secretion from the jaws.

Cocktail Ants will generally build their nest in the same trees that birds nest in, and form a mutualistic relationship. This is an association between organisms of two different species in which each member benefits. In this way when the birds protect their nest, they in turn protect the ants nest as well.