Big-headed ants offer no such defense, and in regions where they’ve invaded, elephants do five to seven times more damage to whistling thorns than they’d otherwise manage, Kamaru’s team found.

A new study reveals that tree-nesting birds, like starlings, weavers and sparrows, prefer to nest in whistling thorns that host the most aggressive ant species, to take advantage of the ants ...

Acacia ant strongholds are thickly carpeted with whistling-thorns. Big-headed ants, however, are not so good at keeping the elephants at bay.

As we’ve covered before, each ant acacia tree in Costa Rica provides food and housing for one of four species of ants which pay for their room and board by aggressively defending the tree from ...