AUDIO:

"Humboldt Bay Watch," Sept. 29, 2022.

The following is a rough machine transcript. Click the words to skip to that point in the audio.

MIDGE MARTIN:

The drama that you have been waiting all day for, I can just about guarantee it: It is time for Humboldt Baywatch brought to you by Kokotat, making all of the gear that you need to get into the water, and guess what, they do it locally and you got to love that. I have got the executive director of the Trinidad Coastal Land Trust Michelle Kunst on the line today. Hey, Michelle!

MICHELLE KUNST:

Hey, Midge!

MARTIN:

How are you?

KUNST:

I am doing pretty good. I'm really enjoying these mornings where the fog burns off like almost instantly and now it's a beautiful sunny day.

MARTIN:

Isn't that nice? I love it because you wake up and it's like you're a little foggy. It kind of like wakes up with you. It's right on time.

KUNST:

Yes, totally. Yeah. And in those days where it just as foggy all day, it's like having a hard time waking up.

MARTIN:

Yeah, well and you know the sun is coming up later and later. I definitely am like finding myself, if I don't have my robe directly beside my bed, like if I have to get up out into the kind of like cold dark ... I mean I might just quit my job. I can't do it. It doesn't work for me.

KUNST:

I know because I am like that.

MARTIN:

Yeah, it's not, it's not a great time, but now is a great time because -- highly caffeinated, had a bagel, and we're going to do a little talking. I love when you and I talk because you always pick such an interesting little creature.  And what are you going to be talking about with us today?

KUNST:

I'm glad that you also think it's interesting, it's something that you probably know about me by now is that I really am just enthralled by like the weird creatures of this area, like, you know, the less than charismatic one.

So today I want to talk about a group of ants -- thatcher ants -- and how just weird and interesting they are. So there's, you know, there's there's multiple species, I'm not really going to get into that, but the thatcher ants are really widespread. They live like pretty much anywhere on the west coast of the U. S. and Canada and you probably have seen them. I feel like locally, I've mostly seen them at the dunes, in particular in the dune forest where there's still some trees around. 

But so what is kind of like, what I think is the most interesting thing about them and what you would recognize them by is so that you know, they're called thatcher ants or some people also call them thatching ants and that thatch part comes from this really incredible mound that they make kind of like, you know, people think of like an ant hive or an ant nest. But these these species of thatcher and they collect plant matter from around them. They like nibble off grass, stems, little twigs, little bits of leaf and they catch them together almost in this like woven pattern of plant debris. So you can kind of imagine like, you know the game pick-up sticks, where you like have a big handful of sticks and you just kind of toss them down and then they just kind of like fall into this really intricate interwoven pattern. And so this is where they live and actually a single colony of these thatcher ants sometimes are like one too many of these mountains and and it's just incredible like out in the dunes, you'll see them like I said, and they really vary in size to like in the dunes.

I've mostly seen them to be maybe like two ft wide at most maybe like several inches like six inches tall off the ground. And I learned through researching that they'll actually go like sometimes several feet deep into the earth which obviously you can't see just by walking by them, but in other places they'll grow even taller, they'll grow like up to a meter tall, which is just kind of just scary actually,

MARTIN:

but in

KUNST:

our area they're a little bit smaller.

MARTIN:

You know what's funny is yes. Yes, I have. What's funny is when you were describing then I thought you were talking about the ants for a minute and I was like, I don't know that I've seen a two ft wide ant walking around. I thought I was like, I wonder if she's like trying to say like centimeter, I don't know. But yes, these mounds. So yes, I have seen them and you know, if you weren't paying attention, you could just think that it was a collection of debris because it kind of just looks like, but where are they, how are they living inside of it? It looks so dense.

KUNST:

Yeah, I mean, yeah, they really don't look like a whole lot when you look at them from afar, but when you look closer, especially like on a warm day, it's not like raining out or it's not like blasting sun, You'll see them just crawling in around all the little twigs, all the matching that they've made into their hives.and they're just busy, like you can think of, I think most people think of ants is just being constantly having work to do. So like also as the day they're leaving the hive, they're collecting um dash material to build their mound up there, rearranging the patches, they're like moving it every which angle they're also going out and feeding and bringing food into the queen.

But yeah, so there, I think one of the like really the coolest thing to me about their hives is that they are just constantly rearranging it to have a like a climate controlled living space. So, you know, they stop these little bits of plant material, Plant materials are changing the angles to let in different amounts of air, sun moisture if it's maybe like a windy day from a certain direction, They like the northwest, they'll maybe like block off some of the areas on the northwest side of their hives to kind of like keep their their their nest a little bit warmer or maybe it's really hot out. So they're like opening up their hives to get some more airflow in there.But I just think that it's incredible that they can, they can keep the temperature of their hive at a stable temperature that's perfect for their bodies and their queen and their, you know, their larva just by rearranging the thatch of their hives, busy doing that all day long.

MARTIN:

Yeah, that is really impressive.They're like little architects and engineers. So you said that they were out bringing things for their home and food for their queen, What are they eating?

KUNST:

Yeah, that's a great question. So they're omnivorous, which means that they are eating both plants and animals, so they will eat, you know, grass flowers, whatever kind of like vegetable matters around them. And especially like if grass is starting to grow around the rims of their hives, they'll make sure to munch that down.But then they'll also eat bugs, other types of bugs, which usually is like a team effort, so there may be fined and already dead beetle for example and they'll carry it into their hives both to feed themselves, but also to feed their queens. Um but I think the kind of most interesting pray that they have is that they farm aphids. So sometimes yeah, when you're walking around a thatcher and high, I think locally like many ants are harvesting aphids or farming aphids on lupin I read just because they're like really succulent and big and I don't know exactly the relationship there, but so they don't actually eat the aphids, but they farm the aphids and kind of nurture them and tend to them and make sure that they're doing well so that the ants can harvest the honey do off of the, that the aphids produce.

And so they'll step up that honey do and they also bring it to their queen to feed her and the larva. 

MARTIN:

So what do you mean? They tend to them and I don't know what honey do is I guess I didn't know aphids were making like a sugary byproduct.

KUNST:

Yeah. Yeah, I didn't really know that either. And I kind of assume that something similar is happening in the aphids that we find in our garden to.But yeah, somehow they're producing, I'm not really sure about the details of that process, but they are producing this kind of sticky sweet substance presumably like in relationship with whatever plants their growing on. Um and yeah, so I don't know all the details involved also with the ants kind of tending to the acids, but they will have like little dedicated colonies of aphids that they will tend to, and they'll kind of like make sure that the acids are all like lined up together and you know, they have enough like plant material to live on and like kind of just keep it clean and keep it nearby the nest so that they can have that that so they can benefit off of those aphids,

MARTIN:

They can harvest their crop of honey do from an aphid and it sounds like a little symbiotic because it means that the aphids have a nice little place to exist. They're not getting gobbled up by anybody else, They got a nice clean place to exist.

KUNST:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so it's yeah, it's great. I mean, I also was reading that these thatcher aunts and probably most species of ants, although they could be kind of pesky I you know, I've definitely dealt with ants in my house and it's no fun.It they tend to not be the thatcher ants that are a pest in your house, but sometimes people have them in their yards to um but they're really important ecosystem engineers because they are they're kind of like making, having a big impact on the soil in whatever, you know, area that they're whatever ecosystem they're living in because they're aerating the soil so much and they're decomposing so much matter and really like helping to break down decomposing plants and then they have this added benefit of kind of like regulating the pest populations such as aphids,

MARTIN:

right? So when you say ants in your house versus a thatcher at what thatcher ant little mix up that I don't even know if you got that, that was like a subtle mix up there.Yeah, so differentiating between them, it seems like house ants are kind of like black and these seem to be maybe a little bigger and they have a pretty distinct color about them.

KUNST:

Yeah, totally. So the thatcher ants are quite a bit bigger than most house ants, like those ones are really, really tiny and really black and the thatcher ants are quite a bit bigger. And and it's actually it's it's interesting, there's actually like three different casts of worker ants that that come in three different sizes and have different roles, but generally the ones that you're seeing outside of the nests are bigger and they also have like a pretty distinct red tint to them.And if you look closer because they're fairly big, they have these big scary mandibles or jaws, which is what they used to um you know, get their food and also pinch predators

MARTIN:

you ever

KUNST:

Exactly, yeah, so definitely be warned you do not want to mess with thatcher and hive because they will pinch you and they will spray formic acid on you which you know, it's a very small dosage so it's not going to really harm you but especially like in an open pinch wound, it will sing um and it kind of has like a citrusy smell to it even taste and so if you are around your aunts and you, you can sometimes smell, it's almost like a sour, citrusy smell.

MARTIN:

Uh yeah, these don't look like ants that you would want to mess with. I love, love that you picked ants because I love ants, I love them, they're my favorite thing. Um I love watching them, I love thinking about it. I love ... one day I had an ant on my arm and I was like, you know what, You're cool. And then I went to work and it was still on my arm and I was like, I just took you like to a different solar system, you know what I mean? I was like, I'm so, I was hoping to like take it back because I was like you were going to be looking and you are not going to find it from Eureka to Ferndale, you know, I felt kind of guilty but I thought you know what, you're a new Voyager on a new moon out here because they're just so little but they're just so impressive.

I love an ant. I will sit and watch them. I actually, we talk about ants in our house and I know that's the thing in Humboldt County and you don't want them in your house in general. But my, my um trash can is right by my back door and I saw them and they were coming in through like underneath my back door and directly into my trash can. And at first I saw him, I was like, oh man. And then I thought have at it, have at it guys enjoy your lives. They're not, they're not in any way in my, you know, I was like free kitchen trash dinner and you're not in there, you're not eating the food in my house, you're just taking it from there. I said, I thought you did it. You cracked the code ants, you're more than welcome to come in and eat my watermelon rinds out of my trash right now. They cracked the code, but I love an aunt and especially, you know, house ants not known for being super beneficial to your house, but I love knowing that there are these ants that are out aerating gardens, dunes, so you don't want to mess with them and let them go about their business.

KUNST:

Mhm Yeah, yeah. I love your attitude about and so kind of you.

MARTIN:

Yeah,

KUNST:

They're so interesting. Like I could probably go on and on and really also just have a lot more research to do about all ants really, but especially these thatcher ants a lot of really interesting things that I wasn't even able to get to. So if you are curious, definitely dive into the rabbit hole of thatcher ants. They have some cool weird things about their queens and they can parasitize other hives and yeah, all sorts of weird stuff.

MARTIN:

I can tell that I've got a little research project going because I two ants are ones that I go in on because they'll like fight each other. Like they took ants from different parts of the world and put them together and they were like fighting each other, but they knew each other from different things. They're so interesting to me in the way they convey. Yeah. I I just can't tell, I was looking at this reading about them and I was like, I'm going to spend the rest of my day reading about this particular and they are one of my favorite little creatures. So I was excited that you picked a an ant to talk about today. So we learned a lot about ants and that's your ants in particular. But one thing that you were saying is you weren't sure if you had an aunt song, did you come up with an ant song?

KUNST:

You know, I did. I, I found an ant song that was kind of fun. I'm also curious if you found some of course there's like the ants go marching. What four by four,

MARTIN:

Everybody knows that.

KUNST:

But I also found the song and by tank and the it's pretty fun. It's not like entirely about and it's about other things too, but it has some cute little ants lyrics in there.

MARTIN:

Okay, by tank. And now this has an explicit thing next to it. Let me see if that's the whole album, There does seem to be there, there's something in here and I'm being warned that this song is explicit. Who would guess that a song about ants would turn out to be explicit? Um.

KUNST:

That wasn't explicit, but I could be, I don't know where you're looking.

MARTIN:

Okay. I will find a non explicit version of this song and play it because it's gonna take me a second. Find one I had found as a little fun one. Um I got ants in my pants and I want to dance by James Brown was the one

KUNST:

that, yeah,

MARTIN:

that was the one where I was like, okay, she doesn't find one, a little James Brown never hurt anybody. But what I will do, I'll take a little, we're gonna go ahead and take a break. Let me see if in this break, I can find a I'm pretty, I'm pretty quick on my feet when it comes to it and we'll try to find ants by tank. And the bang is if not we'll play a little James Brown and I got ants in my pants, but I appreciate talking with you today and especially I know last week it was kind of like a quick can't. So thanks for holding off being patient and coming back with my favorite creature -- and ant.

KUNST:

Yeah, yeah, of course. Thanks for that.

MARTIN:

that. Yeah. Enjoy the rest of your day,

KUNST:

You as well. Bye.

MARTIN:

Bye.