"These were the freaks of nature, the Barnum and Bailey of nature."

January 9, 2012 6:58 AM

"Birds with teeth, snakes with fingers, and humans with apelike hair - these are ancestral traits that pop up regularly in nature," Abouheif explained. "But for the longest time in evolutionary theory, these ancestral traits were thought to go nowhere - slips in the developmental system that reveal things from the past." In other words: make way for the SUPER-SOLDIER ANTS.

FTA: By applying the growth hormone methoprene to the larvae of various Pheidole ants previously unknown to beget super-soldiers during a "narrow window" in their gestation, the ants developed huge heads and useless wings.

Abouheif said this treatment awakened the traits of militaristic ancestors who used their grotesque noggins to defend their colonies from attackers by blocking the entrance to their nests with their heads. These characteristics were suppressed as the genus became more diverse and many species developed other strategies for defence over millenia.

But what his research shows is that these genes can remain dormant for millions of years, only to be reactivated under exceptional environmental conditions.
* * *
"I, for one..."

posted by obscurator (29 comments total)

When I saw the picture of one on the front page of the Montreal Gazette (iPad version), I was completely, "Kill it! KILL IT WITH FIRE!"
posted by Kitteh at 7:10 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]

Until I see some proteins or something that are present in the treated ants but not the rest of the ants, I'm not sure that I'm willing to accept that what's going on here is best characterized as the reactivation of genes that have been dormant for millions of years. I also think you need more evidence than the guys at the health club who bulk up really fast but fly off the handle at the slightest provocation to support your hypothesis that emo cavemen did the Altamira paintings.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 7:14 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]

I've seen this story a few times on the internet in the last couple of days and it always seems to take the CRAZY MAD SCIENTISTS CREATE MONSTER ANTS angle, which is, I think, a lot less interesting than what's actually going on. See Myrmecos.
posted by shakespeherian at 7:36 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

I don't even mess with them dudes.
posted by briank at 7:39 AM on January 9

Reminds me of the (Bruce Sterling?) sci-fi short story where an ant-like colony ship develops, upon exploration by humans, a "brain" caste which arises only under stress for the purpose of destroying competing civilizations. I believe it's called Swarm.
posted by leotrotsky at 7:39 AM on January 9

Excerpts:

"You are a young race and lay great stock by your own cleverness, " Swarm said. "As usual, you fail to see that intelligence is not a survival trait."

Afriel wiped sweat from his face. "We've done well," he said. "We came to you, and peacefully. You didn't come to us."

"I refer to exactly that," Swarm said urbanely. "This urge to expand, to explore, to develop, is just what will make you extinct. You naively suppose that you can continue to feed your curiosity indefinitely. It is an old story, pursued by countless races before you. Within a thousand years perhaps a little longer your species will vanish."

"Intelligence is very much a two-edged sword, Captain-Doctor. It is useful only up to a point. It interferes with the business of living. Life, and intelligence, do not mix very well. They are not at all closely related, as you childishly assume."

"But you, then you are a rational being”"

"I am a tool, as I said." "When you began your pheromonal experiments, the chemical imbalance became apparent to the Queen. It triggered certain genetic patterns within her body, and I was reborn. Chemical sabotage is a problem that can best be dealt with by intelligence. I am a brain replete, you see, specially designed to be far more intelligent than any young race. Within three days I was fully self-conscious. Within five days I had deciphered these markings on my body. They are the genetically encoded history of my race within five days and two hours I recognized the problem at hand and knew what to do. I am now doing it. I am six days old."

"Technology, though I am capable of it, is painful to me. I am a genetic artifact; there are fail-safes within me that prevent me from taking over the Nest for my own uses. That would mean falling into the same trap of progress as other intelligent races."

posted by leotrotsky at 7:44 AM on January 9 [5 favorites]

But what his research shows is that these genes can remain dormant for millions of years, only to be reactivated under exceptional environmental conditions.

Not bit-rot in millions of years? Really? I am also very doubtful. Unless mutations (of various kinds) are culled out by natural selection, those genes are going to get farther and farther from "working code" and in millions of years, are going to be fairly unrunnable.
posted by DU at 7:45 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

This essay suffers significantly for the lack of pictures.
posted by oddman at 8:12 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]

Agreed. Pix or it can't happen.
posted by monospace at 8:17 AM on January 9

DNA is pretty bit rot resistant given that it's double redundant with error checking and most errors don't matter all that much anyway (due to silent mutations and conservative substitutions). The bigger likelihood, at least in evolutionary time, is that some other function will appropriate the protein for its own purposes - particularly since there is less room under the hood than we used to think.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 8:28 AM on January 9 [4 favorites]

Wasn't there a Dr Who episode where the mad scientist who is trying to rejuvenate himself accidentally reactivates the dormant DNA left over from when human beings were 20-foot arachnoform monsters? The Lazarus Experiment, I think.
posted by Segundus at 8:32 AM on January 9

*insert eponysterical comment here*
posted by workerant at 8:42 AM on January 9 [3 favorites]

The pics are in the 'More images' link, below the main one.

direct link to normal|OMG


It took me quite a while to realise which way it was facing...
posted by titus-g at 8:44 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

I can't find the name, but seem to recall reading years ago (in, of all places, Larry Gonick's "Cartoon History of the Universe vol 1.") about a fish species that, when it got overpopulated, developed a mutant variation in a small percentage of its members. This mutated organism would be oversized and ferocious, and would then turn on its own species and essentially weed out the weakest. It's a fascinating part of evolution, when a species evolves a trait in a minority of its population that rises or falls in number based on external factors facing the whole population, and not just the organism.
posted by hincandenza at 8:56 AM on January 9 [2 favorites]

oh NO!!!
posted by basicchannel at 8:56 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

This is an experiment that could never go wrong.

I am currently imagining a situation where a freak accident douses the scientist with his own formula, which causes his head to grow to an enormous size. Since he can no longer get to his grant applications, he cannot research a cure, so he sets out on a life of crime!
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:59 AM on January 9 [6 favorites]

Yeah exactly my nightmares from when I was a kid except in my nightmares there were billions of those big-head ants swirling around and around covering my field of vision completely seething and pulsating and roiling with their pincers clenching and releasing in such vast uncountable quantities the only thing one could hear was an arrhythmic sussurating like the tide rolling in at the end of the world and they would come closer and closer and then I'd wake up screaming and the only thing I had to comfort me until my mother came was the buzzing of house wasps around the bare bulb at the top of the attic room I slept in.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:23 AM on January 9 [5 favorites]

Late night adds for methoprene creams should be popping up any time now. So to speak.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:27 AM on January 9

This essay suffers significantly for the lack of pictures.

I got along perfectly fine without pictures thank you very much oh please no pictures please please please
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:00 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

I got along perfectly fine without pictures

At least that giant head was only designed for improved biting. Imagine where we would be if those ants specialized in thinking! Well, thinking with a sideline in biting, I suppose.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:30 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

I can't find the name, but seem to recall reading years ago (in, of all places, Larry Gonick's "Cartoon History of the Universe vol 1.") about a fish species that, when it got overpopulated, developed a mutant variation in a small percentage of its members. This mutated organism would be oversized and ferocious, and would then turn on its own species and essentially weed out the weakest.

You did not read this in Cartoon History of the Universe Vol 1. I've read that book from cover to cover probably 10 or 20 times and I've never heard this story before.
posted by DU at 10:46 AM on January 9

Somewhat lost in the ZOMG is how cool this is from an evolutionary standpoint, if true. Rapid eras of evolutionary progress are known but how or why they occurred hasn't fully been understood. But if steroids during the larval stage can bring out recessed evolutionary traits, that goes a long way toward piecing things together.

Reminds me of Bruce Banner getting angry...
posted by lubujackson at 11:13 AM on January 9

...when it got overpopulated, developed a mutant variation in a small percentage of its members. This mutated organism would be oversized and ferocious, and would then turn on its own species and essentially weed out the weakest. It's a fascinating part of evolution, when a species evolves a trait in a minority of its population that rises or falls in number based on external factors facing the whole population, and not just the organism.

Just like humans!
posted by perhapses at 11:14 AM on January 9

DU: You did not read this in Cartoon History of the Universe Vol 1. I've read that book from cover to cover probably 10 or 20 times and I've never heard this story before.

Possibly not from CHotUp1, no, but I'll bet you money I read it in a Larry Gonick "Cartoon ______ [of the/to] ____" book. I can even picture it in my head, the cartoon drawing of the oversized fish. If you have a copy handy, double check.
posted by hincandenza at 11:35 AM on January 9

It could be in his Genetics book, which I read either 0 or 1 times.
posted by DU at 11:50 AM on January 9

I am currently imagining a situation where a freak accident douses the scientist with his own formula....

Or maybe he just dumps it down the well on purpose.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 12:04 PM on January 9

Banks' Swarm sounds like a variation on a theme first enunciated (to me) in Richard McKenna's overpoweringly wonderful Hunter, Come Home.
posted by jamjam at 1:08 PM on January 9

The mad scientist primary investigator was also interviewed on Quirks and Quarks recently.
posted by greatgefilte at 1:52 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]

Related article on bee soldiers (they do exist!) and Pheidole supersoldiers.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:21 PM on January 10