A Camponotus (maculatus group) worker scavenges the carcass of a planthopper.

Kibale Forest, Uganda
A Camponotus (maculatus group) worker scavenges the carcass of a planthopper.

Kibale Forest, Uganda
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 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 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
Camponotus chromaiodes carpenter ants dismember the carcass of a periodical cicada.

Allerton Park, Illinois, USA
This Myrmica punctiventris forager has found the carcass of a Lasius queen.

Urbana, Illinois, USA
Paratrechina longicornis crazy ants scavenging a trap-jaw ant carcass.  Paratrechina group-transport their food, a rapid method, allowing them to secure resources before slower but more aggressive competing species.

Archbold Biological Station, Florida, USA
Melophorus sp. ants drag an earwig back to the nest.  Notice the different sizes of worker ants- this species is polymorphic in the worker caste.

Poochera, South 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
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 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
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all images and text © Alex Wild 2001-2013