Flies Get A-head of Ants

A group of tiny phorid flies patrols the battlefields after ant colonies fight each other and steals the heads of injured ants. Dr. Brian Brown, a Canadian scientist and Curator of Entomology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, first observed this while doing field work in Costa Rica. The flies carefully approach the injured ants to make sure they're sufficiently incapacitated to not be dangerous. Then, if the ant is unable to defend itself, they go straight for the throat, using serrated mouth-parts to cut off the ant's head, which they then spirit away. Dr. Brown thinks the ant head is an easily portable chunk of meat and full of valuable nutrients. More generally, it suggests that injured soldiers from ant-battles are a valuable food resource for many other insects.