It’s not just the big guys (or termites) you have to be worried about when setting up a camera trap in the jungle. As naturalist Phil Torres of The Jungle Diaries found out a few months back, you should probably look out for ants too.
Torres is a biologist, conservationist, naturalist, and photographer, and he was in the Amazon rainforest back in February, trying to set up a simple camera trap using a Canon 7D, an off-camera flash, and an IR sensor. When he left the night before, the setup looked like this:
Everything was neatly bagged up to keep it out of the rain, and the gear was tested and in good condition. But when they arrived the next morning, they found all the bags and coverings gone, their tripods and cables chewed up, and all the gear waterlogged beyond saving.
The culprit? Thousands of these little guys:
This is a leaf cutter ant, and it turns out Torres and his team had set up their trap just a few feet away from the ants’ nest. Overnight, the ants came and cut their bags to pieces, chewed into their gorillapods and cables, and left whatever gear was still working exposed to the elements so the rain could finish the job.
Check out the video below to see all the damage for yourself:
In all, the ants caused about $2,800 worth of damage by Torres count, and that’s not including the damage to his pride…
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