On Aphids, Ants and “Lions”
ASK a farmer what he thinks of aphids and he may make your ears tingle. These tiny insects suck the sap from tender leaves and stems in his crop and can do a great deal of damage.
On the other hand, beekeepers in Germany prize aphids highly. In the Black Forest there lives an aphid that gives off a substance called honeydew, which bees love. Beekeepers from far away travel there with their bee colonies. After the bees get honeydew from the aphids they can make expensive, famous fir honey for their owners.
Other insects are divided in their feelings toward aphids, just as people are. Certain species of ants are so fond of aphids (for the honeydew!) that they protect their little friends from their enemies and even hide them underground.
The fact is that aphids are already well equipped for survival, even without the help of friendly ants. They have a bewildering sex life, for one thing, which practically assures rapid multiplication. Several generations of aphids may not even have to mate in order to produce offspring! The aphids are born with eggs for other aphids right inside them. These eggs hatch and are born as live aphids with more eggs inside!
In other species, the aphids do not grow wings if there is plenty of food where they are, but let the food supply run short and the wings begin to grow! Soon they fly off to find more food. As one source put it, “Here it is literally true that hunger gives wings.”
If it weren’t for their natural enemies, the earth might be overrun with aphids. But what happens when aphids are protected against their enemies by their friends, the ants?
The “aphid lion” (the larva of the green lacewing) is a creature that has a voracious appetite for aphids. It is big, gray, and bristled, while the aphids it likes to eat are small, white, and covered with a fluffy waxlike secretion. As soon as the aphid lion shows up for dinner, alert ants attack it, driving it off.
What does the aphid lion do? Some aphid lions sneak up on aphids and snatch bits of the fluffy wax from their backs, using them to disguise themselves until they look like overgrown aphids. Then these ‘lions in aphids’ clothing’ sneak into the “flock” while the ant “shepherds” are unaware. If an ant gets suspicious, the disguised lion hides its big jaws by putting its head down, and stays very still. Generally, it is inspected and then left alone. As soon as the guardian ant walks away, too bad for the nearest aphid!
To most people, aphids are just tiny dots on a leaf, at most a nuisance. Closer examination, however, reveals the amazing and sometimes humorous handiwork of the Creator.