Green Tree Ant

These ants are very common in North Queensland. The ones I observed were busy building leaf nests. I was wondering how these leaves were stuck together -here's how they do it -Several ants choose leaves of live trees and they hold the leaf edge together slightly folded while another group of workers with ant larvae in their mouths walk along the margins to and fro while the larvae produce silk that stitch the leaf edges together. This process is said to take hours. The ants might colonise a whole plant or part of a tree making several nests as can be seen in the photos. Each nest might house a different class of ants-some just eggs and larvae, some the workers and others the single queen with massive protection. This single plant had all shapes of nests (pics 4 & 5) and a few more were being made. <br> These ants are said to enjoy honey dew produced by caterpillars, leaf hoppers and sap suckers, offering them protection in return. <br> They are said to feed on insects and spiders that they drag back into their nests. They have also been spotted carrying lizards and small invertebrates to feed their larvae.