51–60 of 70 posts
I also recently learned that ants remove deceased workers from their nest, and dump their corpses somewhere else. Source: my office carpet
I also recently learned that ants remove deceased workers from their nest, and dump their corpses somewhere else. Source: my office carpet
They also remove their dead from other places. For instance, if I squish an ant in my kitchen, somewhere between minutes and hours later it will be carried off by another ant.
My friend used this to his advantage during college to successfully evict several ant colonies from his room. YMMV.
Stunning! They are also the only other animal on the planet to manipulate it's environment to grow food, apart from humans, by protecting aphids. Sometimes they even wage war to neighboring nests, and kidnap larvae which subsequently grow as workers. Ottomans were very fond of this practice. Ant's face photographed on an electron microscope shows an animal with a very high level of intelligence.
They don't just protect them as a food source. Some wood ants will literally farm them. If a they expand or a tree isn't producing enough sap, they will move aphids to new trees putting them on a new sap source so that they can "milk" them for honeydew (aphid excreted sugar which is a major food source for wood ants).
I also recently learned that ants remove deceased workers from their nest, and dump their corpses somewhere else. Source: my office carpet
Ants are hella cute. Sometimes I would get ants coming into my home, and it was fun watching them try to find food somewhere. I tried to keep it clean. Were these the recon teams sent to find stuff? Sometimes I’d bring them to my desk and it was cool hanging out with some ants. I eventually caved and bought some sugar cubes. They seemed to LOVE them. I chipped them into smaller chunks, and watching ants yeet them on…
Ants are the only bugs I dont mind having around. Sometimes I get hundreds of them in my kitchen and sometimes just sit and watch them lol
Note: for the latter, I lived in an RV at that time, the bed was literally at arms reach from the kitchen. I tried to use insecticide gel, which ended up making the problem worse, as I now had dying and crazy ants falling down from the ceiling. Turned out the source of infestation was a dirty bike bag that ants turned into a colony, throwing it out solved the problem.
For the few people here who are not useless assholes and don't want to kill these beautiful and perfect creatures, just spray vinegar mixed with water around your kitchen or whatever to drive them away.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They also remove their dead from other places. For instance, if I squish an ant in my kitchen, somewhere between minutes and hours later it will be carried off by another ant.
Apparently if you pile up enough of them, it can reach a critical mass where the rest of the colony says "fuck this" and "nopes out". A large enough pile of dead ants near a colony entrance can cause the rest of the colony to leave their current location, pack everything up, and re-build their colony elsewhere. My friend used this to his advantage during college to successfully evict several ant colonies from his roo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They also remove their dead from other places. For instance, if I squish an ant in my kitchen, somewhere between minutes and hours later it will be carried off by another ant.
Apparently if you pile up enough of them, it can reach a critical mass where the rest of the colony says "fuck this" and "nopes out". A large enough pile of dead ants near a colony entrance can cause the rest of the colony to leave their current location, pack everything up, and re-build their colony elsewhere. My friend used this to his advantage during college to successfully evict several ant colonies from his roo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Ant's face photographed on an electron microscope shows an animal with a very high level of intelligence. What? I can't tell if I'm missing something, or is this some meme.
I am talking about this photo [1], even though it's not after all taken by an electron microscope. Pretty scary, but intelligent face, is it not? [1] https://factcheck.afp.com/macro-photograph-ant-taken-stacked...