We all sleep together ants are incredibly capable creatures . They live in Brobdingnagian , co-ordinated colonies , can lift several times their own organic structure weighting , and coordinate their activity with incredible preciseness .
But many of the things that make ants impressive would also make them formidable foe . Perhaps it ’s time we took a flavour at some of these strengths in nifty particular . commend : it ’s of import to have it off your foe – erm , I mean your new insect master .
10 ) emmet are as quondam as the dinosaursIn 2006 , Scientists from Harvard and Florida State University get together to conducta monumental genetic analysison ants from 19 out of 20 make love subfamilies . Their findings suggested that ants first arose in the mid - Cretaceous time period — about 110—130 million years ago . And yes , that imply :
9 ) emmet have already survived a mass extinction eventThe Cretaceous - Paleogene extinction effect ( still normally referred to as the Cretaceous - Tertiary — or “ K - T ” — experimental extinction event ) is thought to have occurred approximately 65 million class ago come after an perfectly massive impact effect . Widely involve as the downfall of the dinosaurs ( and , accidentally , the cost increase of mammals ) , the year follow the KT - quenching event are actually believed to have been a fourth dimension of fabulously rapid speciation and worldwide expanding upon for ants , check what researchersBert HölldoblerandEdward O. Wilson — source of the Pulitzer - prize win bookThe ant — call “ a rise to ecological dominance . ” [ Illustration by Don Davisvia ]
- emmet have conquered almost the entire globeThe winner of the ants all those million of years ago preserve to this day . In an article bring out ina 2000 subject of PNAS , entomologistTed Schultzcalls the wage hike of the ants “ arguably the greatest success story in the history of terrestrial metazoa ” ( i.e. passably much any multicellular animal on Earth — and yes , that admit humans ) , and truly so .
With the exception of Antarctica , the Arctic , and a handful of island , just about every composition of land on Earth harbors at least one native ant specie ; the ace that do n’t host invading coinage . Take the Hawaiian island , for example — not one of their more than 50 established ant specie is think to be native to the archipelago .
7 ) One group of pismire conquered six continentsTake the Argentine pismire , Linepithema humile , for example . In 2000 , biologists Andrew Suarez and his colleagues at UC Davisreconstructed the invasion chronicle of the L. humile . The team revealed that in the last 100 alone , the species has become established in at least 15 countries throughout the world — including a number of isolated , oceanic islands ( including Hawaii ) — spanning six continent . Shown here is the existence distribution of the Argentine emmet . [ figurevia ]
6 ) The total ant population make our 7 billion looking weakIn their Pulitzer - prize winning bookThe Ants , researchersBert HölldoblerandEdward O. Wilsonestimate that there are upward of 10,000,000,000,000,000 individual pismire alive on Earth at any given time .
5 ) Some emmet are quite largeOf course , even at numbers game exceed 10,000 trillion , ants are small , correct ? Well , that depend entirely on what you consider minuscule . The largest emmet ever discover was really a ossified specimen belonging toTitanomyrma giganteum , was about 2.4 inches long and had a wingspan of almost six inches . Granted , T. giganteum is n’t around any longer , and many ants are less than a mm long — but there are still species like the African driver pismire , Dorylus wilverthi , thatexceed two inch in length . Does that sound small to you ?
4 ) emmet have a hive mindTruth be told , it does n’t matter if it sounds minor to you or not . When 50 - million of them do together to mould a undivided , spookily coordinated superorganism ( and yes — large , ego - coordinate ant coloniesare normally referred to as “ superorganisms ” ) you may reckon your ass you ’ll think it look a spate bigger than a single , 2 - inch ant .
3 ) In some regions of the world , pismire can account for over a tail of the creature biomassBut a 50 - million ant superorganism , believe it or not , does n’t even start to captivate the true extent of the planetary ant presence . We ’re talking about worldwide ant domination , after all — so how much of the Earth ’s biomass do ant really account for ? [ Ant attackvia ]
Inan article published in 2000 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , entomologistTed R. Schultzwrites that on middling , pismire “ monopolise 15—20 % of the terrestrial brute biomass , and in tropical regions where ants are especially abundant , they monopolize 25 % or more . ”
Granted , it would be deceptive to say that emmet have the expectant biomass of any individual species on Earth ( ants are actually a systematic phratry that comprises over 20,000 know species ) — but that ’s not to say they could n’t potentially set aside their interspecies remainder . After all :
2 ) Ants join forces with other speciesThere are over 200 known coinage of so - telephone fungus growing ant . scientist had long assumed that fungus kingdom crop by these ants were simply passed on between generation within individual mintage . But in a survey transmit in 2000,researchers at the University of Texas at Austindiscovered that the ant ’ cultivar are occasionally transfer between specie , as well .
Interspecies cooperation would be one of the biggest vault along the path to establishing a global ant empire — but if fungus - turn emmet can get along , perhaps other specie could as well .
Then again , peradventure cooperation would n’t be necessary , because :
[ Photo removed ]
1 ) Ants commit slaveryMany species of ants areknown to raid neighboring dependency and steal eggs or larvae in a pattern known as “ dulosis ” . The forcibly acquire new are then either eaten or put to employment .
coinage that pattern dulosis are called , quite simply , “ slave - make ants , ” and they rely on this practice to support their colonies . In fact , some mintage of ant are thought to beincapable of feeding themselves in the absence seizure of striver Labor Department — to despoil and enslave is all they know . [ Slave raiding antsvia ]
Images via Wikimedia Commons unless otherwise indicated
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