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I loving love ant facts and will be following this thread closely A couple ant questions I had: So my understanding is that if you kill an ant, that releases pheromones that make all the other ants go nuts, and this is why if you poke an anthill with a stick or whatever they all come swarming out. But the violent parasite queens kill ants and bathe in their fluids, wouldn't this send the ant colony into a frenzy, instead of making them believe the queen is one of their own? Or is my understanding of this wildly misinformed from some dumb poo poo I read as a kid? How exactly do ant colonies detect when they're under attack? Also, I dunno if you can help me with this one, but when I was a kid on family trips to Thailand, I have very distinct memories of the ants there. They were red ants (not quite as bright as fire ants I don't think, but similar), and about the same tiny size as the ants I've otherwise always been familiar with, except they seemed to have a second caste of worker ant that was way larger than the others, maybe 3-5x as much. I remember those guys very well because their bites would hurt like hell. There wasn't anything particularly different about them vs the other ants outside of their much larger size (I think their mandibles would've been disproportionately large as well?). I think instead of grainy ant hills their nests were more solid, like they'd been constructed out of mud, but I'm not so sure my memory isn't lying to me on that one. Would you happen to know what species these ants could've been? Now that I'm an adult and have an interest in ants outside of waging child war, I'd really like to know if there was anything particularly notable about the ants that gave me so much grief as a child, but a couple quick googles has not helped me identify them. If it helps, it would've been in northern-central thailand (rural village between Bangkok and phichit, much closer to phichit than bangkok)
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Jul 13, 2020 23:27
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 14:34 |
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wow, thanks for this great post! it was definitely major ants that i saw, the body proportions were very very similar to the basic media ants, they were just Way Bigger (they also definitely engaged in regular ant work and weren't just for fighting). carpenter ants makes sense and sounds pretty similar, though trying to google images of them i haven't found anything that really looks quite like i remember. the biggest difference is the mandibles, the major ants i remember had pretty big, almost pincer-like mandibles that would extend off to the sides of the ant while at rest/just walking places (i'm pretty sure. though might've just been that they weren't happy to see me and that's what my memories are based off of). doing some quick googling, their mandibles would've looked more more similar to "trapjaw" ants than what i'm seeing for carpenter ants, just perpetually open (though trapjaws are a decent bit further in the pincerlike direction, and definitely lack any resemblance other than broad strokes jaw shape). my memory of the media ants was that they didn't have those same jaws, and if you were to take one and transplant it in my texan backyard it wouldn't look at all different from the usual ants, but given your explanation that doesn't seem to make very much sense. another big thing i'm noticing is that it looks like typically the major workers have disproportionately large heads compared to media ants (more room for jaw muscles, right?), as if they were playing an old video game and had big head mode enabled, while i'm very certain that the major workers i ran into had pretty proportional heads compared to the media. onto some actual questions: while there's many notable species of ant with distinct and highly specialized mandibles, there does seem to be a "standard" mandible shape that is employed by i guess the most commonly seen by humans species. i'd best describe it as "clamp-like." you know, these guys:  what's particularly advantageous about this shape of mandible? how do these mandibles serve their specialized purpose better than the much more knifelike mandibles of, say, driver ants? question 2: there's a lot of talk about ant hivemind intelligence and their ability to engineer complex solutions to problems, but how much of that is "instinct" vs adaptability? or i guess, to what extent can ant colonies learn and adapt to new situations without having to go through, like, evolution to develop new behaviors or solutions? do ant colonies develop different "personalities?" can one ant colony be noticeably more aggressive in behavior than another ant colony of the same species, or have other little "individualized" (for as much as that word means for a colony) behaviors like preferred foods or deviations in colony structure? also years back i watched a wonderful documentary following a colony of driver ants through one transport nest -> build nest -> eat everything -> transport nest cycle, got me very hooked on Cool Ant Facts. do you have any good ant documentary recommendations? ninjewtsu fucked around with this message at 13:18 on Jul 14, 2020 |
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Jul 14, 2020 13:11
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This is a wonderful thread! What are ant diseases like? Do ants have an equivalent of the flu, or some other kind of common-but-usually-not-serious disease? You've mentioned that they make their own antibacterial, but what happens when a colony gets an infection? Are infected workers put into care chambers or anything, or culled, or does the colony even have a mechanism of recognizing that it has an infection? Assuming it does, how does it do so? Also are there any ant species especially notable for attacking other ant colonies, like beyond typical turf wars or whatever, aside from the already mentioned parasite queens? What are the conqueror ants
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Jul 14, 2020 22:27
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StrixNebulosa posted:Seconding these questions but especially this one I'm trawling youtube for documentaries now. That said ninjewtsu if you can find this documentary again I want to watch it! I'll try to remember to find it after work tonight!
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Jul 14, 2020 22:33
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StrixNebulosa posted:Seconding these questions but especially this one I'm trawling youtube for documentaries now. That said ninjewtsu if you can find this documentary again I want to watch it! here you go bud https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwEubzr7sCs this poo poo is hardcore as hell and i love it. don't mean to be monopolizing the ant questions but i want to know so much more! iirc i once heard/read that there's tons of ants living under the ocean (underwater? or merely subterranean beneath the seabed?), potentially more than exist on land. i can't find anything backing this up on google so maybe it doesn't exist and i'm full of poo poo, but in any case do ants have any interesting interactions with large bodies of water? i know there's the famous antrafts but is that all there is to it, or is there more to ants and water than that? also, what are the major ant predators and what are ants' defense mechanisms against these? seems like ant colony growth is generally more limited by access to food than any real predators (and the vulnerable period when a new nest is forming), though there's obviously parasites and whatever the hell anteaters are too.
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Jul 15, 2020 03:10
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How do ants react to rain? What goes on in the nest during a rainstorm? Doesn't it mess up all their pheromone trails? Is there any ant prey that have developed sophisticated anti-ant defense mechanisms?
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Jul 16, 2020 00:09
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what are ant emotions like? obviously they have a fear response and can be stressed, but are happy ants a thing? is that something that's considered per ant or per colony? can ants develop mental disorders, like are there ant colonies with PTSD or some kind of ant equivalent? what is ant neurology like
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Jul 17, 2020 02:51
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What're the most unusual materials that ants are known to construct their nests out of?
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Jul 20, 2020 02:00
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How many queens does an ant colony make each mating season? Is that mostly determined by how much food they get? If two queens from the same parent colony both survive mating and set up nests somewhat close to each other, do the colonies recognize each other as being from the same parent colony?
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Jul 21, 2020 18:46
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Are there any quick nobrainer recommendations you would make for someone considering getting their own ant farm?
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Jul 21, 2020 23:36
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Goons Are Great posted:Oh that's easy and just the right time for this, as getting queens now is super easy! i'm in the position of knowing basically nothing about ant farms and just kinda wanting to do it on a whim. definitely don't want to colonize my yard or anything with them, ideally they're as contained within the farm as possible (idk if the landlord or my roommates would be super happy with me otherwise). i'm mostly just thinking about it because earlier you mentioned that if it doesn't work out, it's really easy to just release them back into the wild no harm no foul i guess key questions right now aside form googling "how do i ant farm" is how high maintenance are they? i have adhd and it frequently results in me forgetting to do important stuff, but it sounds to me like as long as i give them at least some food semi-regularly they more or less sort it out on their own, is that the case? how easy is feeding them? is the colony resilient enough to survive just fine if i forget to feed them one day, or am i better off just watching ant documentaries over condemning one queen and her brood to eventually starve to death?
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Jul 23, 2020 04:08
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Are there any interactions between ants and bees or wasps or termites? Or do they just occasionally war with each other same as they would vs any other animal Do ants ever kill people
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Jul 24, 2020 20:05
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Is that why anthills start popping up everywhere when it rains? They only build wet soil?
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Aug 19, 2020 23:47
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I believe I recall hearing that honey ants are eaten in some parts of the world, googling it says indigenous Australians do. Are there any other ant species that are eaten by humans? Have you ever tasted ant?
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Aug 20, 2020 11:47
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Do we know how ants store information? Like it was detailed earlier in the thread how ants can learn, but when they figure out that, say, putting soil in the water bowl makes water stop coming, where is the "brain" that that information is stored in? It's not like every ant has all of that information right?
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Aug 20, 2020 22:55
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That seems like the kind of thing you could test by moving all the ants to a new hive. Do ants retain memory when they migrate their nest? In a situation like that nuclear bunker where ants kept falling into the sealed chamber and survived through cannibalism from earlier in the thread, do the separated ants retain memory? Do supercolonies transport information across large distances?
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Aug 21, 2020 02:23
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Sharpshooter and medic ants are so sick, thanks for sharing this info!
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Aug 27, 2020 20:42
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Are there any ant species where the drones do anything other than have sex and die? Or are there any ant species with particularly notable drones?
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Sep 3, 2020 20:14
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Man I know this is the ant thread but termites sound way more fascinating than I'd ever really given them credit for. I think you mentioned earlier in the thread that they're a superorganism species that developed entirely separate from bees/ants/wasps? I wonder if there's cool termite documentaries out there
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Sep 4, 2020 00:23
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That is so gross but also I'm so much more curious now
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Sep 4, 2020 01:08
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drat termites are fascinating
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Sep 4, 2020 09:56
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If I was interested in ant keeping but really put off by keeping feeder insects are there any ant species that would work well? I guess like leafcutter ants just need leaves? But I'm guessing theres more complexity to keeping them than "dump some leaves in every once in a while"
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Feb 17, 2021 05:39
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Wait does like, dry dog food work? Feeder insects are a pass for me but if I can just throw in dry dog or cat food that'd be super easy. Meat like I'd eat myself seems like a decent option too, though I'm guessing I can't just toss a whole rear end steak into their terrarium and expect that to keep them fed for a month or whatever? ninjewtsu fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Feb 19, 2021 |
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Feb 19, 2021 22:12
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A bottle cap of ground beef once a week sounds like a good excuse to cook more hamburgers, though being able to use sunflower seeds or something as their food seems pretty nice too. Is there a reason the food should be raw and unseasoned? Does this apply to the seeds too - are roasted and salted sunflower seeds from the grocery store not a valid food for baker ants?
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Feb 20, 2021 00:01
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Why are some crazy ants attracted to electricity? What's beneficial about that/what other factors led to them developing that behavior? Also I am tickled pink to learn that the secret that makes crazy ants so scary is "their queens can Go gently caress Themselves" ninjewtsu fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Apr 7, 2021 |
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Apr 7, 2021 22:43
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Has there been any tamed/domesticated ants? Can you teach colonies to not bite humans? Perform commands?
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May 24, 2021 18:06
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why are they called ant colonies? it's not like they have a home country-colony relationship with the parent solony right?
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Jul 1, 2021 05:09
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so somewhat tangential for this thread but between how interesting ants and termites are i wanted to know more about other eusocial creatures, and apparently aside from wasps and bees there's also naked mole rats and some species of shrimp. i'd really like to learn more about these non-insect eusocial animals, does anyone have any good documentary recs for them?
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Jul 23, 2021 21:16
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someone link the video
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Aug 4, 2021 06:49
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aphid_licker posted:What are those shrimp called? That sounds very cool Synalpheus regalis is there more information about the colonies/what circumstances led them to this? that's really neat to see
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Aug 4, 2021 20:17
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so i've been reading up on harpegnathos ants, which are fascinating for a whole host of reasons, but a couple things that are unique about them are 1. they're described as solitary hunters (or at least, as solitary as ants can be i guess) and as such don't lay down pheromone trails, and 2. they can jump, and do so to help them move around while looking for food. so my guess is that 1 is related to 2, in that they probably evolved the jumping ability, and jumping around sounds like something that would either be really hard to lay down pheromone trails while doing, or it would be very hard to follow the pheromone trail of another ant that's jumping around. and without pheromone trails to direct swarm behaviors, makes sense they would've made other evolutions to support individualistic hunting behavior. so first question is how wildly off base am i here? second question is, my understanding of the ant colony "superorganism" is that the pheromone trails are basically the nervous system of the colony (with each individual ant being more like a single cell of a multicellular organism rather than true individuals). so, do these ants have pheromone signals that they utilize differently from the basic directional pheromone trails? or do they have some other mechanisms for directing group behaviors? i'm mostly thinking like, if the nest is under attack, how do all the ants get told to come out and defend the nest if not by pheromones? also, how do the individuals find their way back to the nest? my understanding is for most ants their sense of direction is built around the pheromone trails, is that true? if you took an ant from a different species and picked it up, then placed it 3 feet away from the nest but in an area with no ant pheromones in it, the ant would be completely lost right? or do they actually have some biological mechanisms that function as an internal compass? am i correct in thinking that harpegnathos would be much better at finding their way back to the nest than pheromone trail ant species?
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Aug 27, 2021 22:25
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Are the surfac dirt piles that mark ant nests just where they put the soil they dig out underground, or do their above ground structure serve any kind of purpose? I know from ripping them apart as a child that they're pretty intricate webs of tunnels and sometimes have eggs in them. Is that just like, the ants piled their dirt from excavating up top then later while digging tunnels don't distinguish between underground and the dirt they just threw up on the surface?
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May 4, 2022 01:08
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So I know ants forming supercolonies with other ants is a thing, but is there ever any cooperation with other eusocial creatures, like bees or termites?
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Jun 6, 2022 18:40
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what is the evolutionary reason why ants lost their wings (except the ones that gently caress), what factors could've promoted the loss of flight
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Jun 7, 2022 02:10
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i mean being able to fly seems like a pretty good benefit though how does it not help them enough to be worth the cost?
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Jun 8, 2022 04:48
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Are there any species of ant where the males do anything other than gently caress and die?
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Aug 13, 2022 19:01
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If ants are out hunting and the nest is attacked is there any mechanism for recalling them to defend the nest? New information can't travel down the pheromone trails without an ant walking the trail and laying down new pheromone right? In that event does the nest send out ants to pull back the hunting ants, or do they just continue their duties unaware that the nest is in mortal danger until eventually coming back to a dead queen, or is there some other mechanism at play in that scenario?
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Oct 30, 2022 19:12
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How do ants assess threats? Some ant species are blind and even the ones that can see I assume can't do so very well - more for navigation than for determining how large a snail is vs a frog right? Do they throw themselves at food until x number of ants have died without biting into flesh, then retreat to either stay away or bring a bigger hunting party?
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Nov 1, 2022 19:10
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 14:34 |
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are ant gel formicariums really bad for the ants or anything? will it give them a slow and painful death from ant cancer? i've been thinking i should get an ant farm but a lot of my interest in doing so is in seeing the tunnels they carve and being able to directly observe their nest activities, and it seems pretty hard to achieve both without the gel option
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Mar 21, 2024 19:01
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