CRAZY SATURDAY NIGHT WITH MY KITCHEN ANTS

This actually happened a few Saturdays ago ...

... in my kitchen ... at night ...
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... and it was kind of crazy.

In general, me and my pavement ants ( Tetramorium caespitum ) get along very well with each other while using the common kitchen.
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They appear occasionally to clean up small edible stains, usually at night, and I do my best to avoid stepping on their work.

When comes the time to spread around the new reproductive individuals ...
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... they crawl from their holes in the walls, and they usually do it in the late afternoon ... or earlier on cloudy days ....

... so I just open the window ... and they flay away in the garden ... and beyond.

This was the established procedure for many years ... but ...

... this year ... on the occasion illustrated in this post ...

... they decided to do it in the middle of the night.

I noticed them when I woke up thirsty after a heavy Pizza dinner.

I have a problem with my kitchen lamp, the usual one that hangs from the ceiling ... something is wrong with that part of installation, and I'm lazy to organize the repairs ... so I have a small bedroom or office type of lamp temporarily to have some light there ... and I have a problem :D even with this auxiliary lamp - you can't turn it off, the only way to turn the light into dark is to
pull the thing out of the socket. So I often forget about that light that continues to shine without a good reason, the whole night.

So I was photographing this reproductive frenzy ...
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... and I had the opportunity to catch some pretty cool moments ... like the one on this photograph.
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As the ants were climbing and flying around ...

... some of them ended up caught in the webs ...
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... of my elegant kitchen spiders ...

... of the Pholcus phalangioides species.

It was a great seasonal feast for them ...
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... and some minuscule spiders that I didn't know existed in my house.

... they crawled out of somewhere ... behind the radiator I think ...
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... and climbed on the ants caught at the borders of the Pholcus phalangioides web.

This small worker was trying to help the big winged ant ...
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... caught in the trap.

I was photographing this action for a while ...
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... the kitchen window was open ... and I didn't realize that night ...

... that the ants were attracted by the wrong light.
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Many of them died in vain in the lamp.

I noticed that only the next day.

Seen through the macro lens ...

... the scene looked kind of spooky ... and tragic ... in an elegant way ... because those wings are quite beautiful.

The next few nights the lamp wasn't shining ... the window was open ... and the ants could finish their reproductive work successfully.
As always in these posts on HIVE, the photographs are my work.