A group of NTP members…Radha, Shreeram, Tharangini, and I…decided to bear off our Guru-G, Karthik, to Valley School on Sunday morning, and one of the highlights of the trip was a desperate battle that we witnessed.

The battlefield looked innocuous, and indeed, very pretty: These are the patterns that termites have made on the wood of the tree, which has, obviously, been chopped down because of the termite infestation. The tree trunk looked, to me, like an animal, with a snout in front, and an eye on the left! On the trunk were several pathways,being used by the termites even though many of them were broken. On the trunk, Karthik pointed out an ant and a termite that were battling it out, in nothing short of a wrestling match. Back and forth went the struggle, as we watched for nearly half an hour. The others got busy documenting the war: This was the only shot I took (the video I took is not loading properly and I have not yet been able to put it up on Youtube.)....you can just about see the ant and the termite here. Why were they fighting? We do not know....but the world of Life Under Foot is really fascinating! </lj-cut>