A Pheidole minor worker has picked up a beetle carcass and is carrying it back to her nest. Ants are important scavengers and recyclers of dead arthropods.

Cape Tribulation, Queensland, Australia
A Crematogaster acrobat ant worker tends eucalypt scale insects for honeydew.

Harrietville, Victoria, Australia
A Crematogaster acrobat ant worker tends eucalypt scale insects for honeydew.

Harrietville, Victoria, Australia
A Pheidole minor worker has picked up a beetle carcass and is carrying it back to her nest. Ants are important scavengers and recyclers of dead arthropods.

Cape Tribulation, Queensland, Australia
Death by spider: an Oecophylla smaragdina green tree ant captured by a web-building spider.

Cape Tribulation, Queensland, Australia
Ants are dominant scavengers in most terrestrial ecosystems. Carcasses of other arthropods are quickly discovered and carried back to the nest. Here, Anonychomyrma workers cooperate to transport the body of a dead carpenter ant.

Harrietville, Vicotoria, Australia
Amyciaea albomaculata

Cape Tribulation, Queensland, Australia
Amyciaea albomaculata

Cape Tribulation, Queensland, Australia
Amyciaea albomaculata

Cape Tribulation, Queensland, Australia
Ants are dominant scavengers in most terrestrial ecosystems. Carcasses of other arthropods are quickly discovered and carried back to the nest. Here, Anonychomyrma workers cooperate to transport the body of a dead carpenter ant.

Harrietville, Vicotoria, Australia
Ants are dominant scavengers in most terrestrial ecosystems. Carcasses of other arthropods are quickly discovered and carried back to the nest. Here, Anonychomyrma workers cooperate to transport the body of a dead carpenter ant.

Harrietville, Vicotoria, Australia
Ants are dominant scavengers in most terrestrial ecosystems. Carcasses of other arthropods are quickly discovered and carried back to the nest. Here, Anonychomyrma workers cooperate to transport the body of a dead carpenter ant.

Harrietville, Vicotoria, Australia
See photo in original gallery.
all images and text © Alex Wild 2001-2013