Ant colony discovered in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker
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Re: Ant colony discovered in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker
#2So, how are they reproducing? I was under the impression that only the queens are fertile; are ants just long-lived enough that they can maintain their numbers through the periodic addition of ants falling through the hole?
Re: Ant colony discovered in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker
#3So, how are they reproducing? I was under the impression that only the queens are fertile; are ants just long-lived enough that they can maintain their numbers through the periodic addition of ants falling through the hole?
RTFA
Re: Ant colony discovered in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker
#4So, how are they reproducing? I was under the impression that only the queens are fertile; are ants just long-lived enough that they can maintain their numbers through the periodic addition of ants falling through the hole?
RTFA
Ah, so it is 100% maintained by new ants falling through every year. I had no idea individual ants could live for over a year!
Re: Ant colony discovered in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker
#5So, how are they reproducing? I was under the impression that only the queens are fertile; are ants just long-lived enough that they can maintain their numbers through the periodic addition of ants falling through the hole?
> The paper's conclusion reads like a dystopian science fiction scene from the 1970s:
> > The wood-ant ‘colony’ described here – although superficially looking like a functioning colony with workers teeming on the surface of the mound – is rather an example of survival of a large amount of workers trapped within a hostile environment in total darkness, with constantly low temperatures and no ample supply of food. The continued survival of the ‘colony’ through the years is dependent on new workers falling in through the ventilation pipe. The supplement of workers more than compensates for the mortality rate of workers such that through the years the bunker workforce has grown to the level of big, mature natural colonies.
Re: Ant colony discovered in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker
#6It will be interesting to see how this might change in the decades to come. Will they find a way to evolve into a "real" colony? Will they find a way to sustain without reliance on "new arrivals"?
Semi-off-topic, those pictures will haunt my dreams.
Re: Ant colony discovered in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker
#7So, how are they reproducing? I was under the impression that only the queens are fertile; are ants just long-lived enough that they can maintain their numbers through the periodic addition of ants falling through the hole?
[deleted]
Re: Ant colony discovered in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker
#8It's possible they have figured out how to eat the creatures who feast in their cemeteries, essentially making them cannibals at one remove.
In that case, all living things are cannibals at several removes: animals -> decomposing bacteria -> plants -> animals
Re: Ant colony discovered in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker
#9The link is pointing to the comments section of the article.
Re: Ant colony discovered in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker
#10It's almost poetic how from the ruins of the collapsed human socialist era, other species are creating a truly communist colony.