Dr. Justin O. Schmidt likes insects of the persuasive sort, the ones that bite, sting or
squirt venom in your eyes. In the course of his entomological studies all over the world,
he has met the defenses of about 150 different insects, and he has rated them, creating the
Schmidt Sting Pain Index. On the low end: sweat bees, whose sting is "light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm." On the high end: Bullet ants, whose venomous bites cause "pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel." And it can last for hours, leaving you "quivering and still screaming from these peristaltic waves" [of pain].
[more inside]
posted by filthy light thief
on Aug 4, 2011 -
49 comments
Ants are one of the most abundant groups on earth, but, curiously, not a lot of things eat them. Yes, there are anteaters (who also eat a lot of termites), and some lizards specialize on ants, but the little critters are full of noxious chemicals and pheromones that put them way down on the list of predators’ preferred foodstuffs.
Because of this, many other insects and arthropods have evolved to mimic ants, taking advantage of the aversion of predators to anything antlike.
These mimics are called myrmecomorphs, and they’re the subject of a really nice eponymous feature in this week’s Current Biology.
[via]
posted by AceRock
on May 12, 2011 -
22 comments
Once the fungus invades its victim’s body, it’s already too late. The invader spreads through the host in a matter of days. . . . Just before dying, the infected body—a zombie—grasps a perch as the mature fungal invader erupts from the back of the zombie’s head to rain down spores on unsuspecting victims below, starting the cycle again. This isn’t the latest gross-out moment from a George A. Romero horror film; it is part of a very real evolutionary arms race between a parasitic fungus and its victims, ants. (SL Smithsonian article)
posted by bearwife
on Nov 4, 2010 -
80 comments
Introducing Our New Ant Overlords. Argentine Ants (
Linepithema humile) have spread to every continent aside from Antarctica, forming Supercolonies such as stretching 3,700 miles (6,000km) of the Mediterranean. Once thought to be independent of one another, scientists now have cause to believe that the disparate Supercolonies in fact make up one global Mega-Colony. They are highly invasive, attack native animals, thrive in fast-growing, high-density colonies, and have an increased capability for cooperation. "The enormous extent of this population is paralleled only by human society," the researchers claim...
posted by Navelgazer
on Jul 6, 2009 -
61 comments
The
Graduate University for Advanced Studies, casually referred to as
Sōkendai (a contraction of Sōgō kenkyū daigakuin daigaku), was founded in 1988 as the 96th
national university in Japan. Amongst other things, it is home to the
Soken Taxa Web Server which in turn hosts
the first online Japanese Ant Color Image Database that currently lists 273 species of ant, the
Illustrated Guide of Marine Mammals and the
Marine Mammals Stranding DataBase, the
Mammalian Crania Photographic Archive that currently includes 704 specimens, the
Morning Glories Database that covers the many mutants of
Ipomoea nil, closely related species and interspecific hybrids, the
Makino Herbarium Database, which is named after the pioneering Japanese botanist,
Tomitaro Makino, and the
Japanese Bees Image Database.
posted by filthy light thief
on Apr 20, 2009 -
5 comments
The Uprising Of The Ants: "Alexandra Achenbach and Susanne Foitzik from Ludwig Maximillians Universty in Munich found that some of the kidnapped workers don't bow to the whims of their new queen. Once they have matured, they start killing the pupae of their captors, destroying as many as two-thirds of the colony's brood. "
posted by The Whelk
on Apr 2, 2009 -
32 comments
If a young worker attempts to reproduce, she is spreadeagled by her fellows and kept immobilized for hours or even days. At the end of her sentence, the best she can hope for is a reduction in rank and loss of reproductive capability. Often she is mutilated or killed.
Fascinating
article about police-state behavior in insects, complete with information on mutant anarchist worker bees, ant-led coups, and parasitic self-cloning bees.
(via BoingBoing.)
posted by Vidiot
on Aug 6, 2003 -
5 comments
EuroAnts Recognizing that free trade and globalization are inevitable, ants in Europe have formed a super-colony. Does their currency have pictures of generic anthills so no colony feels left out?
posted by srboisvert
on Apr 15, 2002 -
22 comments
