For ants, a 'cleaning station' in the desert

Imagine you are in the Arizona desert and you see a group of giant ants standing still, motionless, in front of the nest of much smaller ants. They are not fighting; they are not fleeing; they are standing there, as if waiting for something. It really happened, and the scene was captured by Mark Moffett, an entomologist at the Smithsonian, who, while drinking coffee behind a small house in Portal, Arizona, found himself witnessing this very strange choreography. The red ants, known as harvester ants, emerged from their nest and approached the entrances to the burrows of the tiny cone ants. And instead of ignoring each other or fighting, the big ants stood there, in an awkward position, while the little ants literally climbed on top of them and began to lick and nibble at them. Moffett, who happened to be there by chance, immediately thought of cleaner fish, those fish that live on reefs and clean other, larger fish by eating their parasites. Only here, we are not in the ocean, but among the sand and cactus of the desert. For twenty years, those photos were set aside, archived, because Moffett believed he didn’t have enough data to truly understand what was happening. Then, rereading them after all this time, he realized that the whole story was already there. He has only now published it, in an article in Ecology and Evolution, explaining that a partnership has developed between these two species: the cone ants provide a veritable cleaning service for the harvester ants, which lie down and let themselves be “washed” as if they were in a car wash. Another scientist, Daniel Kronauer of Rockefeller University, who is an expert on ants, called it “a unique discovery” and said he is a big fan of these small natural observations that can change the direction of an entire line of research. What is striking is that no one had ever documented such behavior among ants in the desert: a veritable car wash between two species that would normally ignore each other or fight over territory. But in this corner of Arizona, they have found a way to benefit from each other. And there is a personal detail that makes the story even more fascinating: it all started with a moment of downtime, a cup of coffee at dawn, and an entomologist’s instinct to truly observe what was happening around him, without taking anything for granted. We often make the mistake of thinking that collaboration between species is a rare occurrence, perhaps only seen in documentaries. Yet here, it is happening right under our noses, even among tiny creatures living in the desert. So, if even ants have invented their own cleaning station, what are we missing out on when we don't look up from our phones? Here's the key phrase to remember: Even in the desert, collaboration can be the winning strategy. If this story has changed your perspective, you can mark it on Lara Notes with I'm In – choose whether it's an interest, an experience, or a belief. And if tomorrow you tell someone about these ants that give themselves a car wash, you can note it on Lara Notes: “Shared Offline” is the way to say that the conversation mattered. This note comes from The New York Times and has saved you over thirty seconds of reading time.