Banded sugar ant meat ants, which have been observed blocking banded sugar ant nesting holes with pebbles and soil to prevent them from leaving their nest during the early hours of the day. The ants counter this by preventing meat ants from leaving their nest by blocking their nesting holes with debris, a behaviour known as nest-plugging. If meat ant nests are encroached by trees or other shade, banded sugar ants may invade and take over the nest, since the health of the colony may deteriorate from overshadowing. Members of an affected meat ant colony later move to a nearby satellite nest that
Red harvester ant high availability of food and good foraging conditions, therefore a favorable cost-benefit ratio for the foragers exists. If the patroller return rate is too high, it may be a warning of danger, such as the sighting of a predatory lizard. A lower return rate could indicate lack of available food, or heavy competition Ant foraging is guided by chemical signals that lead the ants up to 50–60 m from the nest at times. Once an ant has decided to forage, it will almost always continue until it has found food to take back to the nest; 90% of returning foragers