I remain unconvinced.

Ants, not evil spirits, create devil's gardens in the Amazon rainforest, study finds

For the first time, scientists have identified an ant species that produces its own natural herbicide to poison unwanted plants.

Stanford University biologist Deborah M. Gordon and her co-workers describe the findings in the Sept. 22 issue of the journal Nature. The discovery was made during a four-year field study led by Stanford graduate student Megan E. Frederickson in the Amazon jungle of western Peru. The research focused on devil's gardens, mysterious tracts of vegetation that randomly appear in the Amazonian rainforest.

"Devil's gardens are large stands of trees in the Amazonian rainforest that consist almost entirely of a single species, Duroia hirsuta, and, according to local legend, are cultivated by an evil forest spirit," write Frederickson and her colleagues in Nature. "Here we show that the ant, Myrmelachista schumanni, which nests in D. hirsuta stems, creates devil's gardens by poisoning all plants except its hosts with formic acid. By killing other plants, M. schumanni provides its colonies with abundant nest sites--a long-lasting benefit, as colonies can live for 800 years."

The report, however, shows no sign that the presence of evil spirits was properly controlled for. Unless further information is forthcoming, I am afraid I must dismiss this shoddy attempt to disprove the Evil Forest Spirit hypothesis.