Japanese Ant Database Group
October 15, 2006 6:48 PM   Subscribe

 
Characteristically Japanese in it's incredibly thorough attention to detail. Amazing site. Now I know where to go for ant info. When I'll really need said info, I'm not sure, but, it's there, and that's somehow comforting.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:57 PM on October 15, 2006


Can't get enough of the ant, thanks. Enjoy also: AntWeb and AntBase
posted by MetaMonkey at 7:31 PM on October 15, 2006


Excellent site about fascinating creatures, thanks. I especially like the SEM Image Library at the Japanese Ant Image Database.

The book Journey to the Ants is also a good read: it makes you think twice about where you're walking, and what you might be walking upon.
posted by cenoxo at 7:36 PM on October 15, 2006


Here's a blog on Ants. Mostly Australian ants, but also a few indian ones
posted by dhruva at 7:49 PM on October 15, 2006


Let's not forget British antmusic.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:55 PM on October 15, 2006


[this is good]
posted by Rumple at 8:49 PM on October 15, 2006


Ants of the living dead — Megaloponera foetens:
In the rain forest of the Cameroon in West Central Africa lives a floor dwelling ant known as Megaloponera foetens, or more commonly, the stink ant. This large ant—one of the very few to produce a cry audible to the human ear—lives by foraging for food among the fallen leaves and undergrowth of the extraordinarily rich rain forest floor.

On occasion one of these ants, while looking for food is infected by inhaling a microscopic spore from a fungus of the genus Tomentella. After being inhaled, the spore seats in the ant's tiny brain and begins to grow, causing changes in the ant's patterns of behavior. The ant appears troubled and confused; for the first time in its life the ant leaves the forest floor and begins to climb.

Driven on by the growth of the fungus, the ant embarks on a long and exhaustive climb. Completely spent and having reached a prescribed height, the ant impales the plant with its mandibles. Thus affixed, the ant waits to die.

...The fungus continues to consume first the nerve cells and finally all the soft tissue that remains of the ant. After approximately two weeks a spike appears from what had been the head of the ant. This spike is about an inch and a half in length and has a bright orange tip heavy with spores which rain down onto the rain forest floor for other unsuspecting ants to inhale.
We must climb...
posted by cenoxo at 9:39 PM on October 15, 2006


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