why haven't any animals adapted to this role for humans!
How do you know they didn't? When was the last time you just let bugs spend time on you?
There are more mites specialized to live on your eyebrows skin than many like to think about. =3
Scientists discover “cleaner ants” that groom giant ants in Arizona desert
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Re: Scientists discover “cleaner ants” that groom giant ants in Arizona desert
#22why haven't any animals adapted to this role for humans!
Can we squint and say the gut microbiome is kind of like this?
Re: Scientists discover “cleaner ants” that groom giant ants in Arizona desert
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
> does your kidney compete with your lung? I don't know of any cases of direct kidney v lung competition, but competition among body parts is common. Sometime that competition is adaptive, sometimes not. Examples of adaptive competition are things like when under extreme circumstances (particularly cold or hunger) your body will sacrifice parts of itself to keep other parts going. Examples of non-adaptive competition…
That's exactly my point. Competition at the fundamentals is called cancer. It's the exception, not the norm. Your body prioritizing which parts to keep alive for the survival of the whole ship is not an example of competition. Competition would be if a body part actively attacked another body part. In this case, survival of the entire body will eventually benefit all body parts > I guess that depends on what you cons…
> Competition would be if a body part actively attacked another body part.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about this. I don't see a lot of daylight between "active attack" and starvation of resources. Just because your attacker chooses to lay siege to you rather than mount a full frontal assault doesn't make them any less of an attacker IMHO.
> The "edges" as thoroughly defined in the paper I linked.
Sorry, I don't see it. AFAICT the word "edges" only appears once in the paper:
"Evolution is a process of continuous change, and so we should expect blurry edges with a mosaic of features (1)."
[UPDATE] Oh, BTW, I think that paper is actually very good. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Re: Scientists discover “cleaner ants” that groom giant ants in Arizona desert
#24NYT story earlier on this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47754440
Re: Scientists discover “cleaner ants” that groom giant ants in Arizona desert
#25why haven't any animals adapted to this role for humans!
Plenty of bacteria lives in your guts feeding on your food and generating useful by-products.
Re: Scientists discover “cleaner ants” that groom giant ants in Arizona desert
#26[dead]
Re: Scientists discover “cleaner ants” that groom giant ants in Arizona desert
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you know they didn't? When was the last time you just let bugs spend time on you?
There are more mites specialized to live on your eyebrows skin than many like to think about. =3
Not just mites, we’re absolutely covered and full of commensal organisms. What’s really interesting is how specialized these organisms have become, like the difference between body and head lice. We have critters socialized to just our eyebrows and eyelashes, others only live in apocrine sweat glands, etc.
Even before you get to the literal kilograms of bacteria, fungi and other fauna in our guts we’re a whole world unto ourselves.
We just don’t usually notice.
Re: Scientists discover “cleaner ants” that groom giant ants in Arizona desert
#28They crawl over them and lick and nibble their bodies? Okay I understand the quotes now.
It truly is the oldest profession.
Re: Scientists discover “cleaner ants” that groom giant ants in Arizona desert
#29The full paper described in the article is available here:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13070876/
Mark W. Moffett. The First Cleaner Ant? A Novel Partnership in the Arizona Desert. Ecology and Evolution, 2026; 16 (4) DOI: 10.1002/ece3.73308