Many of he places where I go hiking are home to large ant mounds. These are red, biting ants about half a centimeter long, some of them larger.

The mounds are as much as three meters across, perhaps five centimeters deep at the middle, with the entrance to the colony at the center of the mound where it is deepest. The mounds consist of pebbles four to five millimeters in size that are astonishingly consistent throughout the mound.

I think I read somewhere that these pebbles are created by the ants, who use their mandibles to break up rocks underground into these small pebbles which are carried out of the colony and dropped outside, thus creating the mound.

When I told this to others on the hike today I met with disbelief. Am I wrong about this? Does anyone have a link that supports my assertion?

tanstaafl.