What would an ant want with charcoal?

[BOD]

I saw this little fellow staggering about with this huge load and wondered what he would want to use it for.




He was salvaging the cold charcoal from an old fire site.

Any ideas?

 

[big_swede]

drawing? filtering denatured spirits?

You should have asked him.

 

[Templar]

Could be something like this?

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119532403/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

Karl

 

[BOD]

Karl,

Your link did not work.

Yes I should have asked him or followed him home

 

[sam_acw]

Maybe they just picked it out at random and were going to use it for building - it must have some advantages being more sterile (maybe) or less likely to harbour other insects.
Or they could have been planning a barbeque

 

[Tadpole]

I saw this little fellow staggering about with this huge load and wondered what he would want to use it for.



He was salvaging the cold charcoal from an old fire site.

Any ideas?

Accroding to work carried out in 1984 by Deborah Gordon of the Department of Zoology, Duke University, Durham, N.C,
Ants may use charcoal as a boundary marker, "Ants may use charcoal bits as a repository of a chemical substance functioning as a territorial marker" this research was done on the American ant P.badius Latreille, a harvester ant of the southern U.S.A. Maybe not relevent at all,

 

[xylaria]

Accroding to work carried out in 1984 by Deborah Gordon of the Department of Zoology, Duke University, Durham, N.C,
Ants may use charcoal as a boundary marker, "Ants may use charcoal bits as a repository of a chemical substance functioning as a territorial marker" this research was done on the American ant P.badius Latreille, a harvester ant of the southern U.S.A. Maybe not relevant at all,

I often pay close attention to old fire sites, i have noticed that there seems to be more beetles and ants doing stuff with burnt wood than in normal soil. I never really thought much of it, I just thought maybe it was certain minerals been harvested or something.
The pheromone marker makes sense as charcoal absorbs chemicals.

Either that of the ant was preping the barbecue