| Ant meadow |
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Rearing insects to obtain honey |
Ants sometimes take care of the larvae of aphids or scale insects. This seems strange, but the reason is that since these insects release a sweet sap, the ant raises them to obtain a supply of the sap rather than eating them. As long as these insects are being cared for by ants, they are protected from other enemies.
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Keeping aphids |
Some people call the aphid, the ant's cow. In order to obtain sweet sap from the aphids, ants carry them to the buds of trees that produce a large amount of sweet sap. 
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Paratrechina flavipes helping aphids to move
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Obtaining food from scale insects |
The ant also raises scale insects. Instead of taking the sweet sap away, the ants defend the scale insects from parasitic flies or carry them to a place where a large amount of the sweet sap can be obtained.
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Paratrechina flavipes sucking sweet sap from scale insects
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Raising lycaenid butterfly larvae |
The Camponotus japonicus ant is particularly fond of a sweet fluid released by balck lycaenid butterfly larvae. These larvae are carried into the nest of Camponotus japonicus where they are raised during their larval stage.
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Camponotus japonicus raising larvae of balck lycaenid butterfly
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