Ant with....???

Pretty sure they're baby greenfly - as Roger (gramps) says, the ants farm them.

As an aside, female greenfly can reproduce asexually and remarkably rapidly (as can many aphids). Bloody blackfly make a right mess of our cherry tree after the flowers have gone - the ants seem to keep the ladybirds away from the blackfly for a while, although there seem to be plenty of ladybird pupae around at the moment so they must be finding enough to eat to get that far!
 
Yep 100% aphids. Ants "milk" them for the sugary excretions.

Cracking image Andy (y)
 
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mate that really is a cracking image:cool: Ant's are tied into the life cycles of lots of lots of beasties, actually better said they have relationships with pretty much every thing Have a google of our once extinct large blue. Utter fascinating little dudes. They (ok specific species) actually have fungus farms associations with plants Acia is one I believe a mad genus the world could probably not do without.

Great image Andy really well done but for me it's almost as cool that you asked that little question. Incredibly sophisticated,incredibly simple, one has to admire them !
TFS
stu
 
Cheers Stu. I never knew they had this kind of interaction/relationship. Fascinating stuff!
 
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