ants?

And so, while in Mexico, I started to notice that a lot of the trees were painted white for the bottom metre or so. In fact, as I paid more attention, I realised pretty nearly all of them were painted white at the bottom. I questioned this rather odd practice. Apparently, the white is lime, and it’s there to stop the ants eating the trees. Because in Mexico the ants are starving, fed up with their constant diet of tacos, cheese, and lots of meat, they hang around at the bottom of the trees waiting for leaves to fall so they can have some greenery. Presumably if the trees weren’t painted white, all of the trees would be completely stripped bare.

Of course, when you have a full time tree painting industry, you need to get the lime from somewhere. Hence, this lime factory, in San Antonio.

I did manage to find a sunflower, apparently unscathed by the ravenous ants, despite being unpainted.