In many ways, ants can outwit, outlast, and outplay humans.
Their complex, cooperative societies enable them to survive and thrive in
conditions that would challenge the individual. Here are 10 fascinating facts
about ants that just might convince you they're superior to us.
1. Ants are capable of carrying objects 50 times their own
body weight with their mandibles.
Ants use their diminutive size to their advantage. Relative
to their size, their muscles are thicker than those of larger animals or even
humans. This ratio enables them to produce more force and carry larger objects.
If we had muscles in the proportions of ants, we'd be able to heave a Hyundai
over our heads!
2. Soldier ants use their heads to plug the entrances to
their nests and keep intruders from gaining access.
In certain ant species, the soldier ants have modified heads,
shaped to match the nest entrance. They block access to the nest by sitting
just inside the entrance, with their heads facing out like a cork in a bottle.
When a worker ant returns to the nest, it will touch the soldier ant's head to
let the guard know it belongs to the colony.
3. Certain ant species defend plants in exchange for food and
shelter.
Ant plants, or myrmecophytes, are plants with naturally
occurring hollows where ants can take shelter or feed. These cavities may be
hollow thorns, stems, or even leaf petioles. The ants live in the hollows,
feeding on sugary plant secretions or the excretions of sap-sucking insects.
What do the plants get for providing such luxurious accommodations? The ants
defend the plant from herbivorous mammals and insects, and may even prune away
parasitic plants that attempt to grow on the host plant.
4. The total biomass of all the ants on Earth is roughly
equal to the total biomass of all the people on Earth.
How can this be?! Ants are so tiny, and we are so big! But
scientists estimate there are at least 1.5 million ants on the planet for every
human being. Over 12,000 species of ants are known to exist, on every continent
except Antarctica. Most live in tropical regions. A single acre of Amazon
rainforest may house 3.5 million ants.
5. Ants sometimes herd or tend to insects of other species,
like aphids or leafhoppers.
Ants will do just about anything to get the sugary secretions
of sap-sucking insects, called honeydew. To keep the sweet stuff in close
supply, some ants will herd aphids, carrying the soft-bodied pests from plant
to plant. Leafhoppers sometimes take advantage of this nurturing tendency in
ants, and leave their young to be raised by the ants. This allows the
leafhoppers to go raise another brood.
6. Ants will enslave other ants, keeping them captive and
making them do work for the colony.
Quite a few ant species will take captives from other ant
species, forcing them to do chores for their own colony. Some honeypot ants
will even enslave ants of the same species, taking individuals from foreign
colonies to do their bidding. Polyergus queens, also known as Amazon ants, raid
the colonies of unsuspecting Formica ants. The Amazon queen will find and kill
the Formica queen, then enslave the Formica workers. The slave workers help her
rear her own brood. When herPolyergus offspring reach adulthood, their sole
purpose is to raid other Formica colonies and bring back their pupae, ensuring
a steady supply of slave workers.
7. Ants lived alongside the dinosaurs.
Ants evolved some 130 million years ago during the early
Cretaceous period. Most fossil evidence of insects is found in lumps of ancient
amber, or fossilized plant resin. The oldest known ant fossil, a primitive and
now extinct ant species named Sphercomyrma freyi, was found in Cliffwood Beach,
NJ. Though that fossil only dates back 92 million years, another fossil ant
that proved nearly as old has a clear lineage to ants of present day. This
suggests a much longer evolutionary line than previously thought, leading
scientists to estimate the appearance of ants on Earth as somewhere around 130
million years ago.
8. Ants started farming long before humans.
Fungus farming ants began their agricultural ventures about
50 million years before humans thought to raise their own crops. The earliest
evidence suggests ants began farming as early as 70 million years ago, in the
early Tertiary period. Even more amazing, these ants used sophisticated
horticultural techniques to enhance their crop yields. They secreted chemicals
with antibiotic properties to inhibit mold growth, and devised fertilization
protocols using manure.
9. Some ants form "supercolonies," massive
communities of ants that can stretch for thousands of miles.
Argentine ants, native to South America, now inhabit every
continent except Antarctica due to accidental introductions. Each ant colony
has a distinctive chemical profile that enables members of the group to
recognize each other, and alerts the colony to the presence of strangers.
Scientists recently discovered that massive supercolonies in Europe, North
America, and Japan all share the same chemical profile, meaning they are, in
essence, a global supercolony of ants.
10. Ants follow scent trails laid by scout ants to gather
food.
By following pheromone trails created by other ants from the
colony, foraging ants can gather and store food efficiently. A scout ant first
leaves the nest in search of food, and wanders somewhat randomly until it
discovers something edible. It will then consume some of the food and return to
the nest in a straight, direct line. It seems these scout ants can observe and
recall visual cues that enable them to navigate quickly back to the nest. Along
the return route, the scout ant leaves a trail of pheromones, special scents
that will guide her nestmates to the food. The foraging ants then follow her
path, each one adding more scent to the trail to reinforce it for others. The
workers will continue walking back and forth along the line until the food
source is depleted.
0 comment.:
Post a Comment