berries

Some parents are soccer parents. Some parents are baseball or gymnastics parents. Some drive constantly to swim, cheer, play volleyball or cricket. My kids do swim, play basketball in winter and pick-up baseball anytime, but our primary family sport is fruit picking. Historically speaking, berrying is children's work - one sent the kids out into the woods for the afternoon and if they are not eaten by bears (think _Blueberries for Sal_, _Farmer Boy_, and other classic treatments of the "meet the bear in the woods while berrying") they come back with a pail of berries for canning. We, of…
Just when Andrew and I decided once and for all that ants couldn't get any more delicious looking, along comes a new parasitic roundworm that turns our whole world on its head! The newly discovered nematode enters the ants when they eat bird droppings and causes their abdomens to resemble ripe, tasty berries. This in turn draws the attention of birds who love both berries and ants. The birds eat the ants, crap out the parasites, and the whole thing starts over again. Now we know what Elton John was talking about in that song in the Lion King! Seriously though take a look at the picture below…