Farmers whose trees are teeming wit

Farmers whose trees are teeming with worker ants, however, do not need to bother with any of this. In a survey of several orchards in Benin, Dr van Mele and his colleagues found an average of less than one fruit-fly pupa in each batch of 30 mangoes from trees where worker ants were abundant, but an average of 77 pupae in batches from trees without worker ants. The worker ants, it turns out, are very thorough about hunting down and eating fruit flies, as well as a host of other pests.