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Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows

theguardian.com

61–70 of 70 posts

Re: Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows

#61
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

One can't determine the intelligence of a being by looking at its face.

It sure would make interviews easy though.

Re: Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows

#62
post #55

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.

Thanks for the tip but are you the kind of person that would save a cat over another person? You’re coming out swinging for practically no reason

Yeah if the person was a rapist or murderer or criminal and it's my cat....yeah. The murderer dies and I save my cat..........??? are you not like that?

Re: Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the tip but are you the kind of person that would save a cat over another person? You’re coming out swinging for practically no reason

Yeah if the person was a rapist or murderer or criminal and it's my cat....yeah. The murderer dies and I save my cat..........??? are you not like that?

I’m about 90% sure that you’re trying to make a sarcastic joke but I’ve seen enough people maliciously put words in others mouths thats it’s genuinely hard to tell. Sarcasm isn’t good in text sadly

Re: Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don’t know how successful he was if he had several ant colonies in his room. Perhaps they regrouped and returned to another spot in his room. Perhaps this particular ant colony just loved his room a lot.

In his case, he ended up with no ants. But I'm not sure it works the same for all species!

Re: Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went down a YT ant rabbit hole years ago. On top of that, most garbage collection ants seem to be ants that are close to death, so that when they die, they are near the garbage/disposal area anyway, and might not even need to be carried there when they die.

I think it also helps if the dead ants are diseased / poisoned / covered in deadly fungus too. An ant near death anyway is less value to the colony, and it doesn't matter as much if it gets sick from moving the dead body

Certain bee fungi are detected by the colony's workers — a more-senior worker might then take a one-way trip out of the hive, with infected co-worker as cargo.

She doesn't come back (to not infect the hive, herself).

Re: Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows

#66
post #51
post #16

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.

It is also possible that another insect ate the carcass (perhaps while living, albeit disabled). Cockroaches are notorious.

Re: Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows

#67
post #51

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.

It is also possible that another insect ate the carcass (perhaps while living, albeit disabled). Cockroaches are notorious.

I’ve never seen a cockroach (or any other insect but an ant) in 12 years living in this house.

Re: Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows

#69
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot to mention that woods ants also create their own medicine. Wood ants will combine resin from evergreen trees with formic acid (from themselves) to create a substance that is anti-microbial and the rub it all over themselves. [Source: I've been doing a lot of reading for background for a board game I'm designing.]

Quite interested in this board game. Do you have some more information on this?

It will be called Formica but I have a lot of work yet to do on it. It is set to be quite heavy and complicated, 2+ hour playing time. If you are interested, you can follow all my board game design stuff via @RoscoSchock on Twitter.

Re: Ants can carry out life-saving amputations on injured nest mates, study shows

#70
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also possible that another insect ate the carcass (perhaps while living, albeit disabled). Cockroaches are notorious.

I’ve never seen a cockroach (or any other insect but an ant) in 12 years living in this house.

¡La Cucaracha!

May you remain so blessed...

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