A new study explores a disruptive force in the delicate African ecosystem that holds consequences for even top predators like lions. The big-headed ant, first recorded on the island of Mauritius, has ...

Native acacia ants are killed by the smaller invasive big-headed ants, leaving whistling-thorn trees defenseless against elephants. Credit: Pat Milligan When people talk about the interconnectedness ...

These big-headed ants, as they are more commonly known, started to set up shop in the local whistling-thorn trees, where they kicked out the local native acacia ant population. The problem is that the ...

NEW YORK — A tiny invasive ant muscled into a Kenyan savannah and sparked such a dramatic transformation in the landscape that even the local lions changed the way they hunt, according to research ...

Ants known to defend certain species of Acacia trees from elephant predation deter the massive herbivores so effectively that they are impacting entire savanna ecosystems, according to a study ...

“The ant and the zebra” sounds like the title of one of Aesop’s fables. Like all good fables, this one has a moral, which is that tinkering with nature has unpredictable consequences. Unlike the Greek ...

Karen Hopkin: This is Scientific American’s Science Quickly. I’m Karen Hopkin. Hopkin: Why did the lion take down a buffalo instead of a zebra? Because of the big-headed ants! I know, I know. Sounds ...

At the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a wildlife preserve in central Kenya, lions and cheetahs mingle with zebras and elephants across many miles of... When tiny, invasive ants go marching in ... and alter an ...

When building a bird nest in ant territory, the best defense could be an offensive fungus. Swollen-thorn acacia trees are aggressively defended by multiple species of ants. And yet, several species of ...