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All Articles Tagged As: ants
 | Social insects -- ants in particular -- are usually thought of as selfless entities willing to sacrifice everything for their comrades. However, new research suggests that ant queens are also prepared to compromise the welfare of the entire colony in order to retain the throne. ...> Full Article |
Leaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities.
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 | The invasion of this new species of ants has scientists intrigued, businesses concerned and fire ants running for the hills, said Jerry Cook, an entomologist at Sam Houston State University. Cook and other scientists are at a loss to explain the fast and furious spread of the rapacious ant, which is named after exterminator Tom Rasberry, who discovered the ant in 2002. ...> Full Article |
 | Tree-dwelling ants generally live in harmony with their arboreal hosts. But new research suggests that when they run out of space in their trees of choice, the ants can get destructive to neighboring trees. ...> Full Article |
 | Colonies of army ants, whose long columns and marauding habits are the stuff of natural-history legend, are usually antagonistic to each other, attacking soldiers from rival colonies in border disputes that keep the colonies separate. But new work shows that in some cases the colonies can be cooperative instead of combative. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers have identified and synthesized the chemical cues by which Argentine ants distinguish colony-mates from rivals. By exploiting these chemicals, researchers have demonstrated that normally friendly Argentine ants can turn against each other and fight. ...> Full Article |
 | The complete asexuality of a widespread fungus-gardening ant, the only ant species in the world known to have dispensed with males entirely, has been confirmed by a team of Texas and Brazilian researchers. ...> Full Article |
 | A study in the September issue of the American Naturalist describes new details about a fungal parasite that coerces ants into dying in just the right spot -- one that is ideal for the fungus to grow and reproduce. The study, led David P. Hughes of Harvard University, shows just how precisely the fungus manipulates the behavior of its hapless hosts. ...> Full Article |
 | In a study released online on July 22 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences, researchers at Arizona State University and Princeton University show that ants can accomplish a task more rationally than our -- multimodal, egg-headed, tool-using, bipedal, opposing-thumbed -- selves. This is not the case of humans being "stupider" than ants. ...> Full Article |
 | Partner switching between fungus farming ants and their fungal clones during nest establishment may contribute to the stability of this long-term mutualistic relationship. ...> Full Article |
 | After a new type of phorid fly infests a red imported fire ant, it takes over control of what corresponds to the ant's brain and makes it wander about 50 m away from the mound. Away from the mount, the ant's head drops off and the parasite safely emerges. ...> Full Article |
 | UC Riverside entomologists offer evidence for a mechanism: decrease in chemical signals produced by living ants ...> Full Article |
Nature is full of mutually beneficial arrangements between organisms -- like the relationship between flowering plants and their bee pollinators. But sometimes these blissful relationships have a dark side, as Harvard zoologist Megan Frederickson describes in an article for the May issue of the American Naturalist.
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 | New diseases affect human survival and food security, especially as population density climbs. Leaf-cutting ants, one of a few groups of social insects to cultivate crops and live in dense colonies, harvest plant material to fertilize underground fungal gardens. New results from the Smithsonian show that both the ants and their fungal crop actively combat fungi coming into the nest inside leaves. ...> Full Article |
Ant trails fascinate children and scientists alike. With so many ants traveling in both directions, meeting and contacting one another, carrying their loads and giving the impression that they have a sense of urgency and duty, they pose the following question: how do they organize themselves? A new study published in the open-access, peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE may have some answers.
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 | Native fence lizards in the southeastern United States are adapting to potentially fatal invasive fire-ant attacks by developing behaviors that enable them to escape from the ants, as well as by developing longer hind legs, which can increase the effectiveness of this behavior. This finding provides biologists with an example of evolution in action, and provides wildlife managers with knowledge that they can use to develop plans for managing invasive species. ...> Full Article |
Certain ant species gain territory by collaborating in unusual manners
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In ant society, workers normally give up reproducing themselves to care for their queen's offspring, who are their brothers and sisters. When workers try to cheat and have their own kids in the queen's presence, their peers swiftly attack and physically restrain them from reproducing.
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 | Ants specializing on one job such as snatching food from a picnic are no more efficient than "Jane-of-all-trade" ants, according to new research from the University of Arizona in Tucson. The finding casts doubt on the idea that the worldwide success of ants stems from job specialization within the colony. ...> Full Article |
 | Caste determination in the Florida harvester ants based largely on the nutrition they receive. ...> Full Article |
 | A new species of blind, subterranean, predatory ant discovered in the Amazon rainforest is likely a descendant of the very first ants to evolve. ...> Full Article |
 | Researchers trying to determine whether nature or nurture determines an ant's status in the colony have found a surprising answer ...> Full Article |
 | Ice age climate change and ancient flooding - but not barriers created by rivers - may have promoted the evolution of new insect species in the Amazon region of South America, a new study suggests. ...> Full Article |
 | New study shows the age of victims determines how fire ants respond to aggressors ...> Full Article |
 | Far from being a model of social co-operation, the ant world is riddled with cheating and corruption - and it goes all the way to the top ...> Full Article |
 | Ever since a forward-thinking trio of physicists identified the phenomenon known as self-organized criticality-a mechanism by which complexity arises in nature-scientists have been applying its concepts to everything from economics to avalanches. ...> Full Article |
 | researchers in Africa have a riveting tale of natural balance gone bad, with an unhappy moral for other ecosystems: This could happen to you. ...> Full Article |
 | A newly discovered parasite so dramatically transforms its host, an ant, that the ant comes to resemble a juicy red berry, ripe for picking, according to a report accepted for publication in The American Naturalist. This is the first example of fruit mimicry caused by a parasite, the co-authors say. ...> Full Article |
 | Throughout the tropics, ants and Acacia trees live together in intricate interdependent relationships that have long fascinated scientists. ...> Full Article |
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