Detail from The Forest Revealed’s “June” pages. The photo is something I witnessed while on a walk a few years ago. When I got home I did some Googling to see what was going on. It was so interesting, I had to include the scene in a painting.
Anteater Scarab & Silky Field Ant “Things are not always as they first appear. The ant thinks it is lucky, dragging the dead scarab home to its mound for the colony to feast on. Then the centimeter-long beetle, one of at least 30 species of anteater scarabs across the continent, comes back to life. By playing dead, it has breached the walls of the ant colony. It is not eaten, but instead it eats its fill of ant larvae and lays its own eggs. It spends the winter among these gentle ants. Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it is steeped in the ants’ scent and so is allowed to remain.” -Text by @katerikosek
