SIAFU
*Image is from http://www.topz10s.com/wp-content/uploads/1147143608.jpg
Oh, hey. There you are!
Where have you been? I've been waiting all day and week for you!
Oh? What's that? Where have I been? Well I've been right here.
I've been getting plenty of unplanned R&R (rest and relaxation, that is). I've been falling asleep. Apparently, all I gotta do is stop moving.
Hmmmm.... It was good.
Anyways. I hope you missed me. I missed you too.
Straight to it then. Today I'll be going on about the Siafu.
The Siafu are ants that are known for a more menacing presence. Lets start with the dramatised version. The following vid is low quality. My apologies! Click on it to change the settings and hopefully you can select a higher p to improve the video quality.
Siafu are known by many names. They are also known as Dorylus, Driver Ants or Safari Ants and are more widely known to inhabit areas of Central and East Africa, and apparently also some of Indonesia. Hmmmm.. I didn't know about the Indonesia bit. It's a bit close to home for my liking.
I've looked for the amazing vid I saw several years ago (because I've blogged about it before) but I can't find it. It's a shame because I thought it was put together pretty well and it had MASSIVE ANTS in it. It was informative but, yeah, I can't find it amongst all the modern search results. It's been drowned.
These ants are nomadic, meaning they move and reform nests as they travel wide areas, staying from weeks to months, depending on how long it takes them to completely deplete their food source. They are very much constantly on the move in large packs or armies and as scavengers they aren't particularly picky. They will take what they need. Dead or alive. How about a more factual documentary snippet this time to get you up to date? Here's one from National Geographic.
It looks like they just carried that snake away!
I also found this video that someone had put together after his travels as a teaching assistant in Uganda. I thought it was pretty good. It has the information I read about on other websites about their armies and characteristics that I couldn't actually find at face value anywhere to sum it up this well.
Not satisfied yet that these ants are demanding your respect or maybe even your flesh?
Maybe have a look at some more links and videos that are online and check out the capacity of these amazing little predators. Just type in your web search Safari ants OR Driver ants OR Dorylus OR Siafu Ants.
I've thrown you a few more links below if you think it's worth reading in to a bit more.
Enjoy... if you can.
-Mez
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