The Never-Aging Ants with a Terrible Secret

May 19, 2021 1:44 PM

Deep in the forests of Germany, nestled neatly into the hollowed-out shells of acorns, live a smattering of ants who have stumbled upon a fountain of youth. They are born workers, but do not do much work. Their days are spent lollygagging about the nest, where their siblings shower them with gifts of food. They seem to elude the ravages of old age, retaining a durably adolescent physique, their outer shells soft and their hue distinctively tawny. Their scent, too, seems to shift, wafting out an alluring perfume that endears them to others. While their sisters, who have nearly identical genomes, perish within months of being born, these death-defying insects live on for years and years and years.
posted by gauche (28 comments total)

Antchive version.
posted by chavenet at 1:49 PM on May 19, 2021 [6 favorites]

The worms’ MO is subtle and ingenious. They are agents not of disaster, but of an insidious social sickness that sets reality only slightly, barely perceptibly, askew. Infected workers get a taste of invincibility and status, swaddling themselves in youth and the benefits it brings. They also form resource sinks that sap the energy of those around them. They become echoes of the microorganisms they harbor. They are, in the end, parasites themselves.

I'm guessing about 1% of the ants are infected.
posted by chavenet at 1:52 PM on May 19, 2021 [89 favorites]

Man, ants seem to get all the real life zombie mind control stuff.
posted by dazed_one at 2:04 PM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]

So the parasite is Instagram, the parasite ants are influencers, the working ants are all the workers out there giving clicks to outrage, and the scientists are the aliens who are sitting in their cross-dimensional spaceships and writing grant proposals for their Human Studies program?
posted by betweenthebars at 2:12 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

That was great! The end kind of reminded me of I Am Legend or some flipped script sci-fi.
posted by iamkimiam at 2:15 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

Shh! Don't tell Peter Thiel!
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 2:21 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

Also: I'm delighted to see the word "futz" in a serious piece of science writing.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 2:22 PM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]

The uninfected workers in parasitized colonies, they realized, were laboring harder…They were dying sooner than they might have if the colonies had remained parasite-free.

Definitely not a metaphor for anything in human society.
posted by adamrice at 2:29 PM on May 19, 2021 [25 favorites]

Someone might want to check the Kardashians for tapeworms. It would explain a lot.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:37 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

Billionaires are just vessels for tapeworms. They laughed at me when I said we needed an actual SCP foundation to deal with this kind of shit.
posted by interogative mood at 2:39 PM on May 19, 2021 [17 favorites]

Shh! Don't tell Peter Thiel!

Billionaire Peter Thiel Backs Fundraiser of Brain-Computer Firm[1,2]
posted by kliuless at 2:40 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

There is an solid metaphor for open source community participation in here somewhere.
posted by mhoye at 2:41 PM on May 19, 2021

Very tiny paintings.
posted by RobotHero at 3:28 PM on May 19, 2021 [5 favorites]

Insects freak me out. And oh joy, here come the 17 year cicadas.
posted by eagles123 at 4:49 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: their outer shells soft and their hue distinctively tawny.
posted by Splunge at 4:53 PM on May 19, 2021 [10 favorites]

Insects freak me out. And oh joy, here come the 17 year cicadas.
posted by eagles123

Preach. After over a year of home isolation... how long do they live? I can do another year. I HATE cicadas. And fear. Hate and fear.
posted by Splunge at 4:56 PM on May 19, 2021

Might be fear and loathing. Yeah, loathing is spot on.
posted by Splunge at 4:56 PM on May 19, 2021

Fry Buys an Egg Salad Sandwich.
posted by zengargoyle at 5:07 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

Hmm. Now I'm wondering about the state of the art of insect-implantable microcontrollers (picocontrollers?) that can drive their host bug around.
posted by whuppy at 5:51 PM on May 19, 2021

At the community level, the ants were exhibiting signs of stress, and the parasite’s true tax was, at last, starting to show. “The cost is in the division of labor,” Das said. The worms were tapping into not just “individual [ant] physiology, but also social interactions,”

The writer deserves a round of applause for doing a great job with this article!
posted by bleep at 6:01 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]

This is some deep Hallownest lore.
posted by adept256 at 6:30 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

Insects freak me out. And oh joy, here come the 17 year cicadas.
posted by eagles123

Preach. After over a year of home isolation... how long do they live? I can do another year. I HATE cicadas. And fear. Hate and fear.

I asked a bunch of people and got between a few weeks to two months. I'm wearing a spacesuit and bringing this. Hope my neigbors don't mind.
posted by eagles123 at 6:52 PM on May 19, 2021

Insects freak me out. And oh joy, here come the 17 year cicadas.
Previously
posted by otherchaz at 8:14 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]

somewhere, the creator of the world's smallest guillotine feels a spring in their step.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:16 PM on May 19, 2021 [8 favorites]

Doesn't everyone have at least one aunt like this?
posted by srboisvert at 5:17 AM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]

^ just a footnote to say everything after srboisvert's comment is further addenda. You just had to go nuclear with the aunt joke.. may god have mercy on our souls
posted by elkevelvet at 7:27 AM on May 20, 2021

Metafilter: Their days are spent lollygagging about the nest, where their siblings shower them with gifts of food.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 10:38 AM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]

I for one welcome our new insect overlords. I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves
posted by kirkaracha at 10:55 AM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]