Ant Lions in Zimbabwe
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
In December 1992, my colleague Simon and I visited a safari park on the outskirts of Harare where we were guided by a very pleasant young Zimbabwean lady, whose name escapes me. We went in for a spot of “bundu bashing” as she called it, i.e. wandering off the beaten track and into the bush in search of wildlife (not too wild we hoped).
During our wanderings, we stopped in a sandy area to examine the ground and our guide asked if we knew what a conical indentation in the sand was. Simon, being a biology graduate with a detailed knowledge of the parasites of toads’ rectums (yawn), said immediately “an ant lion”. At that very same moment we were amazed to see an ant slip into the cone from which it struggled to escape in vain. Within a second, the ant had slipped to the bottom of the cone, which opened and swallowed it completely!
That was an ant lion. Apparently, it is a grub of some kind with large jaws which lives buried in the sand in an upright position waiting for ants to fall into its trap.
To see this happen at that precise moment was a chance in a million.
