Is this why I find ants on roses? I saw an ant running around on one right before it started raining.

Usually I believe they're on roses herding aphids or scale because they like the sugary secretions. Not good.

That's what I figured was happening here too... but then I noticed where the ants were there were no thrips, or less thrips. So I looked closer and watched longer. That's when I saw the ants actually running the thrips down and jumping on them, eating them completely. It was bizarre because I have never seen ants do that before. Usually they're more into carrying things back to their ant hill, or herding bugs for their sugary secretions, not running down and attacking. It was really weird.

Please excuse the typos in my initial post. Darn auto correct!

I got a sick Beverly this early spring. When I trimmed it off I found out ants were making their home in the middle of the main cane. Watch out for ants. Not always good.

Never seen it happen but crazy...

"Herding aphids" - I like that!

Fascinating!

Thanh that's a very good point. Usually ants are considered pests. Here, I usually allow them in the garden anyways because they seem to help to aerate my compacted clay soil by tunneling through it. If they herd aphids here I don't consider it a problem since the aphid eating bugs usually take care of them soon enough.

I have never seen ants eat thrips like this though. It is crazy and fascinating isn't it Jim and Totoro?

I am still not sure exactly what's going on out there, but the ants do seem to be definitely chasing, jumping on, and attacking thrips. It was really surprising. I was hoping someone else has seen this before too just to confirm what I'm seeing. They're just regular ants, nothing special. I have seen them attack and eat little slugs in the past, which is really weird too.

fascinating for sure!

Very interesting. I have plenty of ants, I wish mine would develop an appetite for thrips. Your ants eat thrips, Sultry’s frogs eat thrips, how come there are still so many uneaten thrips? I wish someday thrips would make the endangered species list, along with spider mites.

Interesting.. I have plenty of ants & fire ants- hopefully mine develop an appetite for thrips. I had a bad thrip & midge attack last summer.

Wow! I’m going to keep an eye on my ants, and hope they do the same thing! That would be great! Lisa

pssh, the only ants I see are fire ants (a foreign species to me as a native northerner) and even if they did eat thrips I would still want them to die. I will be interested to see if they take care of your problem. I wonder then if I can have normal ants shipped into Texas

I've also seen ants congregate on a rose bud and seemingly EAT THE BUD!!! But I can't figure this out; maybe it's some other tiny bug that eats the rose and the ants are eating those??? Uber weird...

That's so cool that your ants are eating the thrips! I had to google and I saw that the minute pirate bugs, lady bugs, and lace wings may also eat thrips. I never knew that.

We have fire ants here but worse than that we have these elongate twig ants! They bite you but then spray a chemical on the bite which makes it sting worse than a wasp sting. They like to drop on you from a tree or shrub etc. They seem to go for your neck. I hate them so bad. I usually get stung by them 4 or 5 times a year. Some years they are worse. I read they eat live insects. I don't know if they eat thrips.

Elongate or Mexican twig ant

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/home/florida-gardening/os-twig-ants-stings-20150911-post.html

~Sjn

A "case report and review of the literature" regarding your observations, accepted for publication in the highly regarded Annual Review of Entomology https://www.annualreviews.org/journal/ento, is in the offing. Distinctly possible.

It would be a first by a layperson, and unsettle the world of insectology.

You know, I often see ants on my peonies. After googling, I learned the reason is because the ants like the nectar produced by the peonies. Maybe if you plant peonies near your roses, you'll get more ants on your roses too (which is a good thing I'm assuming?).

Interesting find.... although I get plagues of thrips in late Spring here as well, so I know the darn thing only too well... Thank goodness it's autumn here and not many thrips to be seen!

If there is an ant worse than a fire ant, I don't want to see or meet it. The best thing about moving home was leaving those little b@stards behind. I couldn't be in the yard in flip flops without getting bit between the toes. ohhh I hate them.

Why can't ants eat spider mites? That would be awesome. OTOH maybe all the ants we have are doing more for us than I realized? I'm not sure that I've seen a thrip here??

Mostly instead I'm having problems with ants a couple of you already mentioned: biting me in my flip flops and building castle condos under Reine des Violettes and Plum Perfect. Those two have me worried. :-(

About 10 days later and the ants have eaten ALL the thrips. It’s bizarre. There’s no more thrips!

Ants were all over Belinda's Blush, so I squished aphids, and sprayed off the plant. I saw one lonely ant still hanging around today. I guess he didn't get the memo. lol You can see him in the pics I posted wondering where his meal went. :-p I tell myself at least it isn't fire ants, and I calm down. I never worried about ants ever until I moved south. Still traumatized I guess.

Cori Ann - !!! - that is sooo cool!!! I have tons of ants too....I hate them, because they love to go all around my brick circle inside my perennial arch. I'm always pouring cinammon on the bricks...otherwise the ants will crawl up my legs en masse. blech. Okay after seeing your later pictures (what a difference!!)...maybe I'll be more tolerant to ants. I was thinking of putting cinnamon powder all over the soil in my rose pots. What is the name of the first light pink rose you show in your 2nd batch of pictures?

Witchygirl - bees drop kicking wasps!!! That's a strong image!! Really well put. :) I like wasps...they never bother me, but love to look all over rose leaves to get critters. They're an unsung hero to me. :) Fire ants sound truly horrible.

Sultry - ewww!!!

Carol

Carol it’s Madame Anisette (same rose as all the light ones shown in my first set of photos too).

I don’t know if all ants eat thrips, or just whatever type is in my yard. I don’t know if it’s a one time thing or not. I’m glad they took care if he problem for me though!

Sometimes it's better to observe than to react!

Cori Ann - What a great ending to the thrip problem!

witchygirl - I've learned to live with the wasps, well technically mud daubers. They eat flies! And we have hoards in the summer because of livestock. I do not like carpenter bees because they have riddled all my overhead wooden beams and fence posts! I'll keep the wasps instead!

Madame Anisette - I just looked it up....unsurprisingly, it has the scent of anise. :) I love the smell of anise in roses!!

Carol

I didn't know they eat flies. I thought their sole purpose was to terrorize me. :-o

Ants also eat rose sawfly larva.