Hello! Thanks for checking in on this lovely Saturday. I hope you are making time to get outside, wherever you happen to live.
I was recently at my friend Kim’s house and looking around her farm (Milkweed Meadows Farm in Fruitland, NC) for critters to photograph when I stumbled upon this week’s puzzler. I admit that when I first saw this I had no idea what it was! This is sometimes the case and I relish the challenging of figuring it out. This was a hard one and I wasn’t able to learn the answer until I brought the photos up on my large screen. Looking at these on a tiny phone will make it even more challenging!
These leaves are ragweed, and on them were many many ants along with some other very small insects. They are NOT aphids, even though I know many of your were already thinking Ants– must be with aphids. I did that for weekly puzzler #264. You can read about that between ants and aphids relationship here.
But no, these weren’t aphids. Here are some photos. See what you think.
The puzzler is what are the insects with the ants, and why are they together?
A hint I can give you is that there is a good reason I’m doing this puzzler right after doing the cicada... you’ll learn why next weekend!