Predators I Have Known - Alan Dean Foster [26]
Having found a little time to slip away from supervising construction of the lodge, Boris was guiding Mark and me on one of our longer hikes through the rain forest. As we walked, he enthusiastically pointed out colorful insects, named trees and bushes, and struggled to identify birds according to their songs and calls, careful always to give their scientific as well as common names. It was another steamy late afternoon. Tomorrow would also be hot and steamy, as would the day after that, and the day following. Unless it rained hard, in which case it would only be warm and damp for a while. Once the rain stopped, it would inevitably turn hotter and steamier than ever.
Quite unexpectedly, we came to a clearing in the forest.
It was immediately apparent that this was no inadvertent open space. A single tree stood in the middle of a parklike circle some twenty feet in diameter. The tree itself was not particularly impressive. The clearing that surrounded it was. The site looked as if it had just been mowed by some especially devoted golf course groundskeeper tending to a particularly loved piece of turf. Despite being surrounded on all sides by a rich, loamy, decaying mat of sodden and nourishing rain-forest detritus, not so much as a single green shoot poked its hopeful head skyward from the cleared area.
“Palo santo.” Boris pointed at the tree that was thriving in the center of the inexplicable circle. “The ants that live in the tree keep the area around it perfectly clear. Within the boundaries, nothing is allowed to live that might take nutrients or water from the tree or otherwise harm it. If something starts to grow, they cut it down. If it moves, they kill it or drive it away. In return, the tree gives the ants a home.”
I had long read of such symbiotic ant-tree relationships. The fire ants that dwelled within the tangarana tree are called by the same name as their home: tangarana ants. They were not as widely known and did not have the same widespread malevolent cache as army ants or the dreaded isula ants, but they were feared nonetheless.
“Come, I’ll show you.” Boris started toward the solitary bole. Mark and I exchanged a glance and followed.
Up close, we studied the foot-thick tree trunk. There wasn’t an ant in sight. Unsheathing his machete, Boris reversed it and using the solid haft began tapping lightly on the wood. Within seconds, the trunk was swarming with hundreds of ants. Observing them, I relaxed a little. Despite the frenetic activity they displayed as they searched for the source of the disturbance, they were no more than a quarter inch in length. I had already seen and photographed at close range much larger and far more threatening army ant soldiers. Taking out my video camera, I began recording the activity.
Having stepped back and resheathed his machete, Boris was watching me closely.
“Be careful. Don’t let them get on you.”
“I’m all right.” Seen through the camera’s viewfinder, the ants appeared oddly detached from reality, as if I was already viewing them in finished, edited form. I moved the camera lens closer, confident that I could get good pictures without making physical contact. After all, wasn’t I already experienced at this? Why . . . I had already spent nearly a whole week in the Amazon rain forest.
An incredible searing pain shot through my left hand.
It seems that the enraged tangarana ants not only rush out to defend the trunk of their tree home—swarming into the branches, they fan out into the leaves to drop down onto any intruders below. I had been savagely attacked by a quarter-inch-long parachutist armed with a built-in hypodermic and a toxin that burned like fire.
Jumping back from the tree, I managed to hang on to the camera with my right hand while furiously shaking my left as I launched into an unscripted, unchoreographed, and exceedingly vigorous jig. Back home in the States, such a reaction might well have prompted laughter from any bystanders, or even gained me a few seconds on America’s Funniest Home Videos.
Boris wasn’t laughing.