Insects home

[mrs fish]

I wondered if anyone knows who lives in a house like this


I took this photo at Landguard common to-day while on a school trip, I'm sure this insects home has been mentioned before in a thread but I cannot remember what it was
It may be something like a wasp ant ??

[djackso]

I cannot really gauge the diameter of the entrance hole - do you have a rough estimate?

[mrs fish]

Here is another photo


It was probably just over a centimetre , there was a smaller one nearby.

[mrs fish]

I've remembered it is an "Ant Lion"
A member said they were rare but he had found some pits at Minsmere !
Do you think I should report it ?



There is only one Ant Lion species in the UK

Some info

It's amazing. Ant-lion larva excavate a conical pit in loose sand, hiding in a burrow at the base. If an ant walks into the pit, the larva flicks sand at the ant, which causes it to slip down into the jaws of the ant-lion. Ants don’t need science fiction monsters when the real life can be like this!

A lacewing or ant-lion only does one poo in its entire life, the larvae and adults do not have 'bottoms' so the poo is left behind in the pupal skin when the adult hatches out. The poos are so large and distinctive they can be used to identify the species!

I'm not sure if this is its latin name Brachynemurus longicaudus ??

[serendipity]

i dont think its an antlion they prefer a sandier substrate and there burrow is more of an inverted cone shaped pit this looks more like a hole with the debris from the excavation in a volcano shape round the entrance .I think its a mining bee!

[mrs fish]

I have sent a pic to the county recorder

I think you may be right after having a google about, they like coastal areas and they are volcano shapes.

[fairplay]

Hi mrs fish,

I finally got round to looking at your post. If only I looked at your photo before I replied to your PM !

Bad news I'm afraid, Serendipity is quite right, this is a tunnel of a small wasp which will lay an egg about 6 inches below and then hunt for a grub, paralyse it and bring it back and drag it down the hole for the young wasp to feed on when it hatches, or something along those lines anyway !!

Otherwise it may be the exit hole of an emerging beetle. An ant lion pit is precisely that - a pit, with no hole at the bottom, just a hidden ant lion lurking just beneath the sand at the bottom waiting for the vibrations of an ant at the craters edge, then it flicks up the sand to cause an avalanche and Gotcha !!

As you can imagine the sand has to be fine enough and dry enough to allow for the angle needed in the pit to be just right to start an avalanche - coarse beach sand would not be suitable, but fine sand blown from the beech into the marram grass would be suitable as they are to be found in the dunes at Thorpeness, but it is the glacial sands on the Sandling Heaths of Suffolk as at Dunwich Heath where they are most likely to be found.

There must be no vegetation growing near the pits except a few grass roots maybe as the sand must be able to dry out quickly after rain so you will usually find the pits beneath an overhanging clump of marram or heather in a sheltered alcove and somewhere where there isn't a rabbit run !

Thanks again for sending the PM.

Neil.

[eucera]

I think a bee nest is just as likely as a wasp nest. Sandy substrates are easy to work, and support rich and diverse faunas of both groups of insects.

The description of the Ant-Lion pits is spot on. As it happens, I was lucky enough to be one of the team who first found these in the Minsmere area in 1996. The only UK species of ant-lion is Euroleon nostras

[naturegirl]

Well done the last reply! An Ant lion was discovered at Dungeness in Kent a couple or so years ago, not sure if that was top secret then but it is widely known now. I have seen this sort of 'nest entrance' before and thought it was a bees nest of some sort, possibly Bumble? I have seen bees using it but not sure what sort of bee it was?
Naturegirl

[fairplay]

Hi eucera,

I beat you to it by 10 years !! I found my pits, complete with larvae on Dunwich Heath, next door, in Summer of 86' and later in 92' at Aldringham Walks, Thorpeness, at the site where the Silver Studded Blue have been re-introduced.

Transactions, Suffolk Naturalists' Society, Vol. 35.

Neil.