Recently in Ant behavior Category

Dear AntAsk,

I am a fourth grader, and I am doing a science project. I am required to ask an ant expert questions about my science project. Can you please answer the following questions? When you are testing ants, do they run for survival? What happens when you try to grab ants?

Thank you,
Monica

Dear Monica,

Thank you very much for your great question! Ants can react in two different ways when you try to grab them: Either they try to escape or they try to attack you. Some ants (all belonging to one particular subfamily, the Formicinae) spray formic acid, some other ants sting (for example bullet ants or Acacia ants) for defense. I find that ants usually try to escape unless you are working directly at their nest site. Once you try to grab them at their nest, they want to defend the nest and will even sacrifice their lives.
I hope this answers your question!

All the best,
Steffi Kautz and the AntAsk Team

Hello,

I'm doing a biology project about evolution and I was wondering if ants, specifically the common carpenter or fire ant, has any vestigial features, and what may have been their function.

Thanks!
Haley

Hi Haley,

This sounds like a very interesting biology project! Vestigial traits are reduced or incompletely developed structures. These features are non-adaptive and have no function, but are clearly similar to functioning organs or structures in closely related species. Vestigial traits are homologous among related species and are evidence for common descent and a shared evolutionary history. In ants, vestigial traits have not been extensively studied and there are just a few examples. Remains of wings in the worker cast, called "gemma" have been described in some ant species: in pupae of the ponerine Diacamma ceylonenese (Baratte et al. 2005), in larvae of the red imported fire ant Solenopsis invicta (Bowsher et al. 2007), and in Pheidole morrisi (Sheibat et al. 2010). Vestigial spermatheca are present in some basal ant lineages (Gobin et al. 2008). These vestigial traits are particularly interesting as the queen caste still possesses functional wings and functional spermatheca, but the workers do not. Workers cannot fly and mate. Some ant lineages are sting-less, but possess vestigial traits of the sting apparatus, for example the entire Formicinae subfamily. This subfamily includes the genus Camponotus (carpenter ants). Other vestigial traits are the absence of functional eyes in army ant species (see photo of Eciton burchellii below). These ants are blind, but show remains of the eyes.

Here are the relevant citations:

Baratte S, Cobb M, Deutsch J and Peeters C. 2005. Morphological variations in the pre-imaginal development of the ponerine ant Diacamma ceylonense. Acta Zoologica 86: 25-31.

Bowsher JH, Wray GA, Abouheif E. 2007. Growth and patterning are evolutionarily dissociated in the vestigial wing discs of workers of the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. Journal of Experimental Zoology (Mol. Dev. Evol.) 308B:769-776.

Gobin B, Fuminori I, Billen J, Peeters C. 2008. Degeneration of sperm reservoir and the loss of mating ability in worker ants. Naturwissenschaften 95:1041-1048.

Shbailat S J, Khila A, and Abouheif E. 2010. Correlations between spatiotemporal changes in gene expression and apoptosis underlie wing polyphenism in the ant Pheidole morrisi. Evolution and Development 12: 580-591.

I hope this helps!
Steffi Kautz & the AntAsk Team

Hi,
I was in Corcovado National Park in Costa Rica where I took this photo (sorry about the quality) of what I think is Camponotus sericeiventris. As you can see, the ant is walking over a sticky, black substance with no apparent problem. The whole trunk of the tree was covered in this substance - is it anything to do with the ants?

Many thanks
Alan

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Alan,

Thank you for contacting AntBlog and including an image. We contacted an expert on the ants of Costa Rica, Dr. John T. Longino, to address your question. Here is what Dr. Longino had to say:

"Your ant is indeed Camponotus sericeiventris. I've often seen tree trunks with black, sticky, oozy areas, and ants often seem to be attracted to them. I have always surmised that these are tree infections, a result of wounds and/or pathogens, and that the tree sap is oozing out and evaporating, making a sweet exudate that ants might like. I doubt that the ants are the cause of the exudate.

From the look of your image, the area looks wet but not super sticky. Ants have no problem walking over wet surfaces. Also, if a sticky surface gets a "skin" of moisture or dryness, that would make it easy for an insect to walk over. We might touch a surface and break that thin surface layer, contacting the sticky material below. So a surface that seems sticky to us might not be to an insect.

By the way, I did my graduate work in Corcovado, back in early 1980's, and developed my love of ants there."

John "Jack" Longino (guest expert), Corrie Moreau & the AntAsk Team

Hello,

I would like to know if there is any sense to make out of the strange behavior I witnessed an ant making in my house.

I live in Long Island, NY and I guess the type of ant was a regular black carpenter ant. The first thing that struck me odd was that it had a very narrow thorax, almost like it was pinched in...But that might be 100% normal and I've just never looked that hard at an ant before.

The second thing that struck me odd was that it was standing still and seemed to be jittering its legs while they were planted on the floor, almost like wobbling them. I thought maybe it was neurological damage? Poison? I don't know.

I decided to get some cookie crumbs and a plastic cup so I can try to feed it and observe it for a little while. It did eat a bit which made me feel better. The next strange behavior I saw was that it started grooming the hell out of itself, almost manically as if it was on speed, then it proceed to bite at the bottom tip of it's abdomen. It was freaky; I thought maybe it was pregnant and ready to pop out some eggs or something. I don't think it was, though. It was really weird. I hope he wasn't sick or poisoned. I named him Mercury. I got grossed out from lying on the kitchen floor to watch all this and let it go off into the sunset...

Thanks!

Cheryl Cusimano

*****

Hi Cheryl,

The ant you found was very likely a carpenter ant, but without a more thorough description or any photographic cues, this might be hard to confirm. The "narrow thorax" you observed could have been either the petiole of an ant (the small segment joining the mesosoma and gaster that gives all ants and many other hymenopterans the appearance of having a "waist") or the constricted petiolar segment of a parasitoid wasp. Ensign wasps (family Evaniidae), for example, superficially resemble black carpenter ants and are familiar (if less common) interlopers in domestic settings given their predatory association with cockroaches.

The jittering movement is likewise difficult to explain without further observation. If the insect was indeed an ensign wasp, you might compare this behavior with descriptions of the wasp's peculiar bobbing movements, which involve jerking its abdomen up and down like a hatchet.

The meticulous grooming behavior you observed is characteristic of almost all insects, especially after a meal. Whether this particular individual was an ant or a wasp, obsessive self-grooming would not be unexpected following close inspection of foreign objects like cookie crumbs or plastic cups.

Hope this helps,

Alexandra Westrich & the AntAsk Team

I heard of a study wherein ants were sprayed with a chemical that dead ants usually gave off and their nest-mates carried them off as if they were still dead even though they were still alive. Have you heard of this study and if so do you know where I can find it?

Thanks,
Jon

Hi Jon,

Thanks for your great question! The story is true. Researchers can capture the smell of a dead ant (or any insect) by dipping it in organic solvents (usually hexane) for a couple of minutes. The solvent can then be applied to another object or individual. The ants perceive this experimentally treated object or individual as dead and dispose it to the colony's dump sites. This behavior makes a lot of sense, because a dead and rotting individual would present a threat to the colony as disease could spread easily.

There are some great studies on this behavior (called necrophoresis):

Blum MS (1970) The Chemical Basis of Insect Sociality. In: Beroza M, editor. Chemicals Controlling Insect Behavior. New York: Academic; pp. 61-94.

Choe DW, Millar JG, Rust MK (2009) Chemical signals associated with life inhibit necrophoresis in Argentine ants. PNAS 106:8251-8255.

Gordon DH (1983) Dependence of necrophoric response to oleic acid on social context in the ant, Pogonomyrmex badius. J Chem Ecol. 9:105-111.

Haskins CP, Haskins EF (1974) Notes on necrophoric behavior in the archaic ant Myrmecia vindex (Formicidae: Myrmeciinae) Psyche 81:258-267.

Howard DF, Tschinkel WR (1976) Aspects of necrophoric behavior in the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. Behaviour 56:157-180.

Visscher PK (1983) The honey bee way of death: Necrophoric behaviour in Apis mellifera colonies. Anim Behav. 31:1070-1076.

Wilson EO, Durlach NI, Roth LM (1958) Chemical releasers of necrophoric behavior in ants. Psyche 65:108-114.

All the best,
Steffi Kautz & the AntAsk Team

Dear Ant Ask Team,

I am a fifth grader at Cherry Hill Elementary in Utah. I need an ant expert to answer some questions about ants for a school project. If you have time, will you be able to answer the following questions?

How do ants detect food, even if it's far away?
How do ants smell and how far can they?
What do ants like to eat?
Do the ants' antennae help them detect food?
What are the differences between ants with different jobs in a colony in reference to finding food?
Thanks for your help,

Sam

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Dear Sam,

These are some very interesting questions! Although the answers vary depending on which of the more than 12,000 described species of ant we're talking about, here are some general answers to get you started:

1) Most often ants use the power of social cooperation to find food that's far away. Because they cannot "smell" the food in large distances away from the nest, they send "patroller" ants out of the nest to find food and then tell the rest of the colony where it is. As more and more ants find the source of food, they leave pheromone trails (see Iain Couzin's website for a really cool video of this) behind, which other ants can easily detect and follow to the food. Pretty cool!

2) Of course, it depends on factors like wind, or what they're smelling, but one study found that 6 cm was the maximum distance a harvester ant could respond to an alarm pheromone in still air. For Weaver ants (here's a cool article about their social behavior), that distance was more like 10 cm.

Here is a previous post with a more detailed response about how ants use chemicals called "pheromones" to communicate.

3) This is a tough one! Ants eat a wide variety of food, and have a number of interesting ways of getting it. For most ants, the most digestible food is probably sugar water, and so this is often what they are fed in a lab. In fact, leafcutter ants like this sugar water so much, that they actually use a specific fungi to digest leafs in the forest for them, and then eat the sugar water that the fungus produces! Just like miniature farmers.

4) Yes. The antennae help the ants follow trails of pheromones to get to food, as well as help the ants distinguish the food once they get there.

5) The Gordon Lab does a lot of work on the jobs of ants and how they change over time. Here is an interesting video that might give you a better idea of this:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/deborah_gordon_digs_ants.html

I hope these answers help you with your Science project!

Max Winston & the AntAsk Team

I took pictures of 2 Guardian Ants working Woolly Aphids. I am trying to find the name of the ant species that is acting as guardian to this mass of Woolly Aphids, Prociphilus tessellatus, on a growing Alder shrub next to a lake.

The area this Speckled Alder is growing in is very sparse during the winter with snow and ice licking at its branches. Where would these ants keep these aphids over the winter? Do aphids, and ants have sort of anti-freeze in there system that kicks in during the winter?

Since this was on a lake shore, and at the end of a wooded hill to the lake, do I need to be concerned relative to my plants about 500 feet away? If so what do you suggest?

Thank you,
Richard and Meghan
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Dear Richard and Meghan,

Thank you for contacting AntBlog and send such nice photographs. This certainly helps with identifications. Since you are in New England, we reached out to an expert in the area, Stefan Cover, for help. Here is what he said:

"Those ants are Camponotus noveboracensis. The Camponotus are frequent aphid tenders but we know nothing about the relationship between these ants and that particular aphid. No need to worry about plants 500 feet away, though."

In addition, if you would like to read more about what ants do in the winter, please see our previous post here.

Best regards,
Stefan Cover (guest expert), Corrie Moreau & the AntAsk Team

I imagine every ant species in the world follows the same creed, "There's no 'I' in Team," but I can't help but wonder if there
might exist a species that supports, or promotes, individuality? Would scouts searching for food qualify, if not temporarily,
as individuals on a mission (inevitably for the greater good of the colony)?

Also, if you were to choose two of the nastiest, meanest looking, and most aggressive species of ant which would you choose?
Illustrations, if possible, would be great!

Thank you!

Ralph Glenn Styron, III
East Tennessee

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Hi Ralph,

The question of individuality of ants is certainly an interesting one, which has definitely been asked before. Here you can find the most recent answer to this question asked by a Bulgarian sociologist. Additionally, this article recently came out which challenges the idea of worker equivalence and suggests experiential knowledge as an important factor in ant colonies.

In terms of a battle royale, I'd be interested in seeing Acanthognathus go after a Ecitoninae. The New World Ecitoninae are known for being the legionary ants par excellence with the mandibles to prove it, but the Acanthognathus are known as "trap-jaw ants", and can produce incredible amounts of force with their mechanism that controls their mandibles. For more info on trap-jaws, check out some of the current research being done in the Suarez Lab at University of Illinois.

Hope this helps!
Max Winston & the AntAsk Team

Hi Antweb,

I am a PhD student in Synthetic Biology and I've read that you talked about artificial insemination trials in ants, which have not be very successful. Would you mind giving me the references of the papers talking about that?

Best,
Xavier

Hi Xavier,

Thanks for your question! As you have read in this post on "How to breed ants", artificial insemination in ants has not been very successful and only been tested on very few species. Cupp et al. (1973) conducted an experiment in which the authors decapitated males. Queens were anesthetized with CO2, and stroked against the males to induce ejaculation. This experiment was done using fire ants (Solenopsis invicta). Read here to find out more about the red imported fire ant.

In a study by Bell et al. (1983) instrumental insemination was conducted, also using the fire ant Solenopsis invicta. Virgin queens were induced to fly, anesthetized with CO2 and inseminated with either a mixture of sperm extracted from the male seminal vesicles and accessory gland contents or sperm alone. Of the females we artificially inseminated 65% produced workers. Artificial insemination techniques have also been carried out using Atta leaf-cutter ants (den Boer et al. 2010).

A recent review article on the copulation biology of ants has been published by Boris Baer (2011) in the journal Myrmecological News. Here is a link to the pdf. In this paper, some more references to studies conducting artificial insemination in honey bees and bumble bees are given.

All the best,
Steffi Kautz & the AntAsk Team

References

Ball DE, Mirenda JT, Sorensen AA & Vinson SB (1983) Instrumental insemination of the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata 33: 195-202.

Baer, B (2011) The copulation biology of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Myrmecological News 14: 55-68.

Cupp EW, O'Neal J, Kearney G, Markin GP, (1973) Forced copulation of imported fire ant reproductives. Annals of the Entomological Society of America 66:743-745.

den Boer SPA, Baer B, Boomsma JJ (2010) Seminal fluid mediates ejaculate competition in social insects. Science 327: 1506-1509.

Hi,

We live in the northeast corner of Vermont - close to the 45th parallel. My husband was logging dead trees just inside the woods. He cut down a two-part cottonwood that was large. It was like two cottonwoods had grown together or one had been cut long ago and shoots grew up onto the old tree. But where the V of this tree was, there was soil and that is where the ants lived. When the tree fell, the ants began moving the pupae into the forest floor. Right down under the earth. I did the best I could with the photos and have collected them into a Flickr set. Could you please ID them, if possible? The photos were taken on July 9, 2011.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/meeyauw/sets/72157627234873339/

Thank you very much for any help,
Andree
Barton, VT

Hi Andree,

Thanks for your question. We have deferred to James Trager, an ant expert with a lot of experience in ant identifications and a expert naturalist in general. Here is what he had to say:

"Almost certainly Lasius umbratus. This speices is not arboreal, but lives in soil, logs, stumps, or dead hollows of trees. It lines its nest chambers with a mix of wood pulp and a characteristic black fungus, visible in the pictures. They cultivate large numbers of pale reddish tan aphids on roots, probably including those of the tree in which they lived. In winter, the aphids are gathered up and pass the cold period in a large chamber together with the ants, then in spring are dispersed out among the roots to feed. The aphids provide lots of honey dew and some meat."

So, you not only found ants, but an entire little ecosystem when cutting the wood. Very interesting!

All the best,
James Trager (guest expert), Steffi Kautz & the AntAsk Team