Bidspirit auction | L'antscrape #3 By Ian Bride

L'antscrape #3 By Ian Bride wood sculpture 2020-22 - SHIPS FROM Crosskeys (Wales, UK) DescriptionThe Southern Wood Ant (Formica rufa), a ‘keystone species’ and ‘ecosystem engineer’, maintains the structure of its ecological community, farming aphids in the tree canopy for honeydew, preying on other insects, cleaning up dead creatures, and building large composting, thatched nest mounds above tunnels and chambers penetrating far below ground. Their nests, which include seeds of specific plant species, create a thermally controlled environment for brood development, bring up minerals, and concentrate nutrients that become available to other organisms, particularly when a colony moves and gathered seeds germinate. They provide habitat for species that have evolved chemical defences or ‘invisibility’, and are often interlinked to form vast matriarchal colonies with multiple queens and female worker ants – one estimated to comprise 400 million individuals over >2.5 km2. However, the species is Red-listed as ‘near threatened’ because each population depends upon very few queens.My L’antscrapes developed from noticing their removing soft material from rotting timbers immersed in their nests, possibly aided by the formic acid they produce, primarily for defence. I install selected pieces in nests, leave them for 2-3 years, then extract, clean, treat and mount the results. This produces beautiful objects that offer insights into the wood ant’s world and into the nature of wood itself. Condition: Good Condition, as in images Dimensions: 75 x 40 x 20 cm Weight: 4 kg