Green tree ants are a dominant species in tropical forests stretching from India to northern Australia. Aggressive, industrious and highly territorial, most of their neighbors don’t want to mess with them. With a reputation like that, over millions of years multiple animals evolved to mimic them– some to stay safe, and others to kill.

TRANSCRIPT

In this tropical rainforest green tree ants are everywhere. And they bite.

A single colony can hold up to half a million ants, spreading across a dozen trees and 150 nests — all built by weaving leaves together with silk produced by larvae — their own offspring.

They form living chains, to pull leaf edges together while they weave.

The canopy bustles with ants that are industrious, aggressive, and highly territorial.

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But what’s this slacker doing? Working hard or hardly working?

This isn’t a green tree ant at all. It’s a wannabe, a young bean bug. Pretty convincing disguise.

This proboscis gives it away. It’s how they eat.

Ants have mandibles. They carry knives, not straws.

Bean bugs spend their lives drinking the sap of this bean plant.

When bean bugs grow up, they shed their disguise.

So why the getup in the first place?

It’s an example of Batesian mimicry, when a vulnerable species like the bean bug evolves to look like a more dangerous one.

A predator is likely to skip a green tree ant meal. It’s not worth the fight risk.

By looking like the green tree ant, this docile little bean bug seems like a real threat.

As an adult, it’s much larger and now has wings.

There’s another ant imposter lurking near the colony.

The abdomen of this comb-footed spider resembles the head of a green tree ant – just enough to make predators think twice.

This spider isn’t just some harmless bean bug. It’s here to hunt.

The comb-footed spider lays a silk trap just outside the ant nest.

This is an example of aggressive mimicry.

Where one animal mimics another in order to eat it.

But this isn’t the only spider in ant’s clothing around here.

This crab spider mimics the look and behavior of green tree ants.

It even waves its front legs around, kinda like the ants’ antennae.

The crab spider is an ambush hunter who will wait outside the ant nest, until – gotcha!

Enter mimic number 4: these jumping spiders don’t look so much like green tree ants, but they use another type of aggressive mimicry.They smell just like them.

Also known as chemical mimicry – it’s a convincing enough disguise for the spider to sneak into the ant nest to steal its favorite food: green tree ant larvae.

Researchers think that these jumping spiders live their whole lives next to the same colony.

As they feed on the larvae, they absorb pheromones, which lend the spiders a convincing green tree ant aroma.

Despite all the backstabbers, the wannabes, and infiltrators, green tree ants remain a dominant species from India to Papua New Guinea.

Why have so many different species evolved to look, behave, and smell like this one type of ant?

For millions of years, green tree ants have played such an important role in tropical ecosystems that their neighbors are more likely to survive by mimicking them.

There are masses of them, so finding a way to eat them means access to an abundant food source. They’re also formidable predators, so looking like them means staying safe.

After all, mimicry is the highest form of flattery.

Or trickery.

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Now, see more green tree ant action as they battle peppermint stick insects.

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