Strange Sight At Grand Junction’s Sherwood Park
You go for a walk in the park and you never know what you're going to find.
Recently I was taking a couple of laps around Sherwood Park when my eye caught these patches of brown on the sidewalk. At first glance, it looked like mounds of dirt or spilled coffee grounds on the sidewalk.
But, a closer look revealed movement in the mass. Not dirt, not coffee grounds, but thousands of tiny ants. I couldn't help but wonder what in the world they were doing in this massive conglomeration on the sidewalk - just asking to be crushed underneath the feet of park walkers.
Well, I looked into this phenomenon and discovered these must be a species of pavement ants. They like dry soil and tend to live under sidewalks and paved surfaces. According to Combat Bugs, as new ants are hatched and the colony grows, it becomes necessary for the colony to break off and go in search of another food source.
So, while it looked like these ants were just sunbathing on a warm summer morning, these ants were actually on the move and it was all business. While these ants weren't hurting anything in the park, if you happen to see a large swarm of ants like this near your house you better take precautions because it's quite possible they are planning to come and take up residence inside your house.