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Antdude, if you’ve been waiting for an article to be specifically dedicated to only you, here you go. Of course, even those of you who aren’t insect/human hybrids will be sure to enjoy io9′s fascinating article featuring 10 frightening facts about ants. For example, did you know:
Ants have already survived a mass extinction event
The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event is thought to have occurred approximately 65 million years ago following an absolutely massive impact event. Widely regarded as the downfall of the dinosaurs (and, incidentally, the rise of mammals), the years following the KT-extinction event are actually believed to have been a time of incredibly rapid speciation and worldwide expansion for ants, marking what researchers Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson call “a rise to ecological dominance.”
Really, there’s a good chance ants will outlive humans as well.
Ant farms are cool in and of themselves, but that doesn’t mean their designs can’t be improved on to look even more fascinating. WebEcoist has a great collection of some of the coolest ant farms around. From flags of different nations to the Clone Trooper farm, these toys make me want to go buy my own ant farm.
These ants ate so much that their transparent abdomens swelled up to display their meal color! You can easily tell which ants moved from one blob to another. The photographer is unknown, and there is speculation that the ants are eating drops of Terro ant killer with food coloring added. Link -via The Daily What
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David Hu and Nathan J. Mlot of the Georgia Institute of Technology investigated claims that when flooded out, fire ants will link together to form effective rafts:
“They’ll gather up all the eggs in the colony and will make their way up through the underground network of tunnels, and when the flood waters rise above the ground, they’ll link up together in these massive rafts,” Mlot said. Together with Georgia Tech systems-engineering professor Craig Tovey, the scientists collected fire ants and dunked clumps of them in water to see what would happen.
In less than two minutes the ants had linked “hands” to form a floating structure that kept all the insects safe. Even the ants down below can survive this way, thanks to tiny hairs on the ants’ bodies that trap a thin layer of air.
“Even when they’re on the bottom of the raft, they never technically become submerged,” Mlot said.
As the above video shows, the rafts stay together even under substantial pressure.
Link via Geekosystem
You’ve seen in movies how army ants march through and destroy everything in their path. It’s a scary scene, but did you know that hundreds of species of birds, insects, and other wildlife follow the ants and benefit from their mayhem?
On the screen – from Indiana Jones to MacGyver – a marching column of army ants is a threat to all life. Even the naturalist William Mann wrote in National Geographic that “Even men flee as the mighty column writhes through the jungle, wiping out all insect and animal life in its path.” But these are bold exaggerations. E.burchelli mainly attacks the denizens of the undergrowth – insects, spiders and other arthropods. While it can kill small back-boned animals, its jaws can’t cut skin or flay flesh. Humans aren’t in any danger, nor are a whole host of creatures that accompany the army on its manoeuvres.
As the army marches, it flushes out thousands of animals from the leaf litter, and this attracts birds. Over 200 species track the ants and pick off the morsels that flee from the army. They almost never touch the ants themselves, except by accident, when a worker happens to be clinging onto another tasty insect.
And that’s just the birds. Read about the other hangers-on at Not Exactly Rocket Science. Link
(Image credit: Wikipedia user Mdf)
Filmmaker François Vautier put an ant colony inside a scanner and took a picture once a week every week for five years. This time-lapse video shows the colony gradually filling and eroding the machine.
via GearFuse
Brian Lee, a 24-year-old design student, submitted an entry to an Australian vehicle competition -and won! His design, the Aid Necessities Transporter (A.N.T.) is built to bring supplies to disaster areas. The design was inspired by the worker insects it is named for.
The ANT responds to the need for getting necessary supplies to victims of disasters as fast as possible. Like the ant, ANT was designed with six wheels (6 legs) and carries its supplies like the ant carries food back to its nest in its center, so does the ANT carry supplies and food on its center.
See the concept vehicle in motion at InventorSpot. Link
(Image credit: © Brian Lee)
Cephalotes varians ants live in pre-existing cavities in trees and branches, so one class of their workers has developed a most unusual adaptation.
Turtle ants aren’t fighters. Rather, they’re all about defense. If a colony gets hold of an old beetle burrow, the heavily armored majors will plug the entrance with their head shield and sit tight, budging only to let their nestmates pass. They are literally living doors.
Found at Myrmecos. Elsewhere in the blog you can read about “formicophilia” (a newly named paraphilia).
Ants are such amazing creatures! Able to work together to create vast underground empires and take down almost any animal of any size…even humans! So, what happens when a creature such as the crab ends up getting the ants attention? In a Goliath vs. David (x100 or so) situation a crab thinks its protective armor is a deterrent preventing the ants from killing it, guess again. I can’t imagine what it must feel like having something start eating you from the inside out. O_O
From the BBC show “Ant Attack”.
Ah, Australians. First they introduced cane toads to hunt the greyback cane beetle pests – but the toads turned out to be a much bigger pest and their toxic kill many native predators and farm animals.
Now, there’s a proposal to control the cane toad population by introducing yet another species to battle it: meat-eating ants.
Omnivorous meat ants are native to Australia and reportedly nests in groups of more than 60,000. Professor Rick Shine said that meat ants attack and eat toads. "The ants are moving through these open areas, scavenging for dead insects and so on. If they encounter a baby toads it obviously seems like an appropriate lunch and jump on it. "
What could go wrong? Link [National Geographic Video]
It wasn’t until 2004 that the gliding skills of Cephalotes atratus, a species of ant, was first recorded by scientists. Not only can it glide like your average glidy superhero – surely an oxymoron in there somewhere – it is as close as the insect world gets to resembling Darth Vader. The combination of the two makes this some ant (with apologies to EB White).
The ant is almost a centimeter long, which makes it larger than the ones we are used to in our gardens, and it has the sort of appearance that would make many a casual gardener run for the comfort of the house. With its spookily long hind legs it looks scary enough, but the flanged head shield gives it the look of a certain Jedi gone bad. One could almost expect it to hoarsely rasp the odd dark side aphorism. Yet it is probably these features which have evolved over time to enable the ant to glide.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
There’s a line in one of the Robocop movies, "Don’t forget what you already know," or something like that. I may be remembering that wrong BUT check out these very useful kitchen tips from the pages of history, as compiled by Tipnut. For example:
To keep cheese from getting hard, cut off enough for immediate use and spread the remaining portion with a thin film of butter or margarine. Put it in a cool place. This keeps out the air and prevents the cheese from drying out.
Sprinkle pantry shelves, window sills, and door sills with a mixture of red pepper and sage to rid them of ants.
A smooth shiny egg shell is a sign of old age. Fresh eggs have a chalky rough shell
To make peeling hard-cooked eggs easier, butter your thumbs.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by JKirchartz.
