Yellow meadow ant
1 sound
Our site is home to a number of colonies of the yellow meadow ant, Lasius flavus. This makes the large anthills you can see in some of the fields. The large soil dome above the nest helps regulate its temperature and humidity. These nests provide important habitat for many meadow plants, and the ants themselves play an ecological role in nutrient cycling. But what does it sound like inside an ants nest? Here we used special microphones to listen in. You can hear the sound of many thousands of ants moving around their nest - large colonies can support up to 40,000 ants. But towards the end of this recording you will hear a mystery sound - we don’t know what made it! It sounds a bit like a motorbike or a lawnmower. It is probably made by an insect; perhaps the winged ants vibrating their wings. Or perhaps it is made by one of the other insect species that lives inside meadow ants, such as hoverflies or beetles. What do you think made this sound?
