塚 hills

こんにちは。
本日は私の家の裏から撮った風景をお届けします。

トウモロコシ畑が広がっております。きれいですね。

さて、その真ん中に少し盛り上がった地形があるのですが見えるでしょうか。

拡大写真です。

これ、なんだと思われますか。３ｍはゆうにあります。
小さな山のようにも、また、木が折れたもののようにも見えます。

実はこれ、アリ塚です。
シロアリが作ったものらしいですね。小さな小さなシロアリがこんな大きなものを作ったんです。

この写真のものに限らずアリ塚はそこらじゅうに見られます。もはや土でできた芸術といえるんじゃないかと
いう形のものもあります。
（ちなみにシロアリってアリとは全く関係なく、ゴキブリと近縁のようです。）

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なにを隠そう、この村にはアリなんだかシロアリなんだかわかりませんがアリがすさまじくたくさんいます。
木の下あたり、アリの巣が集まってるところだと本当に数えきれないです。

１歩歩くたびに何十匹のアリ（シロアリ？）を殺してしまっているのかわかりません。
そしてそんなときにも１匹か２匹は自分の足に登ってきます。
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

このような巨大アリ塚の壁は厚さ15cm程もあり、一年を通して温度・湿度の変化が小さいようです。
快適ですね。

「ちりも積もれば山となる」ってまさにこのことをいうのでしょうか。

Good afternoon.
Today, I'd like to show one picture which show the scene from the back of my house.
Please see the first picture above.

There are fields of maize all around. How peaceful and good scinery.

By the way, could you see the swollen landform in the center of that picture?

The second picture above is the one, which enlarges the swollen landform.

What do you think that is?
That is over 3 m high.
It seems a small mountain or the remains of one big tree broken.

In fact, that is ant hill!!

Exactly, the ant hill refers to a termite mound because it's built by termites.
They make such a big hill although a termite is very very small.

I can see many ant hills anywhere around here ,in addition to that one of the picture.
I think some of them might be called the art made of soil because the figures are amaizing.
（By the way, termires and ants has nothing in common and termates are closely related to cockroaches.

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Actually, there are considerably lots of ants, or termates, in this village.
There are uncountable ones especially in the place, where ants' nests gather, below a tree.

Similarly, I can't count how many ants, or termates, I trample underfoot, every steps I take outside.
At the same time, one or two of them go up to my foot.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

I heard such big ant hills are 15 cm thick and they are hardly changed in temperature or humidity through the year.
So they are comfortable houses.

I think it really shows one of Japanese proberves is reasonable , which says that "piles of dust someday makes
a mountain".