As many a mainstream media outlet has noted, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has recently released a 200 page book which lays out the case for encouraging entomophagy – especially amongst somewhat resistant Westerners. ‘Edible insects : Future prospects for food and feed security’. Unfortunately for those inspired to investigate […]
Tag: ants
Group laughter at the social insect conference
“At a social insect conference, the whole room broke into laughter,” writes Myrmecos about the moment someone displayed this chart: Myrmecos explains: “Pachycondyla, among the most common ants in tropical regions worldwide, turns out to be a motley assortment of unrelated species. While the taxonomy of the world’s 12,000 or so ant species is obviously still […]
“The Gold Bug” [fictional], and the real bug that accumulates gold
In 1843, Edgar Allen Poe wrote a fictional story called “The Gold Bug,” about a bug made of gold. In 2012, Aaron Stewart, Ravi Anand and Jens Balkau wrote a scientific treatise about termites that accumulate gold in their nest: “Source of anomalous gold concentrations in termite nests, Moolart Well, Western Australia: implications for exploration,” Aaron D. […]
The scientist who ate 100 ants, repeatedly
There once was a man who swallowed some ants. ‘Twas done with intent, not merely from chance. The ants were alive, But did not survive. The research was done without government grants. The man was and is Volker Sommer, [pictured here] professor of evolutionary anthropology at University College London. He and colleagues Oliver Allon and Alejandra Pascual-Garrido travelled […]
The Chemistry Of Exploding Ants: Oh, Oh
A natural exclamation, to a person upon first encountering the theme of the study “The Chemistry Of Exploding Ants”, might be “Oh-Oh!” That is in fact part of the chemical story, as illustrated in the figure below, which is reproduced from the study. “The Chemistry Of Exploding Ants, Camponotus SPP. (cylindricus COMPLEX),” T.H. JONES, D.A. […]
Colored ants, in parts
The Daily Mail (a news source that inspires literary scholars to speak whimsically about the concept of the “unreliable narrator“) features a story about some colorful photos [one of which is reproduced here]. The story says: Father of three Mohamed Babu set up the photographs after his wife, Shameem, showed him some ants had turned […]
Polyethism, not polytheism, in ants
No, not polytheism. Polyethism. See the study: “Polyethism in a colony of artificial ants“, Chris Marriott, Carlos Gershenson, arXiv:1104.3152v1, April 15, 2011. The authors are at IIMAS, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico. (Thanks to investigator Ralph Egan for bringing this to our attention.)
Ants with stilts: An experiment
Alex Bellos writes: In the first chapter of my book I mention experiments at the University of Ulm that discovered that Saharan desert ants have a sense of number. Researchers first sent ants down a tunnel for food. Once the ants reached the food some of the ants had pig bristles attached to their legs, […]