there's lions in them thar' holes

...or another reason yet that you should read to your children

posted by: jennifer

so for about the past year or so we have noticed these small divots in the loose dirt under our hundreds of years old, live oak.

at first i just thought one of the kids was walking around poking a stick into the ground intermittently, but then i crossed that thought of the list.

we had a couple of people hypothesize on what they felt caused them... one being condensation forming on the tree and dripping down... but i had to throw that off the list as well.

it just didn't make sense.  and when i would walk through the yard and see the holes, i would wonder.  i started thinking it was something alien.  i was clearly grasping at straws here people.

i had of course tried to google it, but came up empty handed.  i was getting images of gopher holes... vole holes....hole holes.

these were inverted cone holes.

then one day, while reading tove jansson's  finn family moomintroll  i learned something new.

i read:
*In case you don't know, an Ant-lion is a crafty insect who digs himself down into the sand
leaving a small round hole above him.  Into this hole unsuspecting little animals fall and then get caught by the Ant-lion, who pops up from the bottom of the hole and devours them.
   You can read all about it in the Encyclopedia if you don't believe me.  Translator

now, upon reading this i looked at my son, and said something along the lines of..."do you think this is real?"  

i mean, it seemed pretty far fetched to me.  and in fact, when searching for ant-lions on ye old google, i felt a wee bit gullible.   

but guess what?!  they are real.  and we have ant-lions living in our yard.  wild huh?  so, next time someone asks what those small holes are in the dirt are from i will state with authority,
"there's lions in them thar' holes".....(ant-lions that is)

cheers!