#leafcutter

[greggslife]

Here Are My Top 10 Favourite Ants

(Updated due to public outcry and political pressure.)

No. 10 - Yellow Crazy Ants

These guys are on a list of "one hundred of the world's worst invasive species" formulated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), having invaded ecosystems from Hawaii to the Seychelles.

But don't hate just because they are awesome at establishing themselves in a new habitat due to their aggression toward other ant species, lack of aggression toward members of their own species, efficient recruitment, and large colony size. Respect the hustle!

No. 9 - Paraponera Clavata

Also known as the "bullet ant," "the one wounding deeply," or "24-hour ant", referring to the full day of pain that follows being stung.

This ant's sting currently ranks the highest of all insect stings on Justin O. Schmidt's informal sting pain index, at 4.0+. Some victims compared the pain to that of being shot, (hence the nickname,) with "waves of burning, throbbing, all-consuming pain that continues unabated for up to 24 hours."

Lymphadenopathy, edema, tachycardia, and fresh blood appearing in human victim feces are common symptoms from even a single sting.

Un-fuck-with-able.

No. 8 - Honeypot Ants

The name honeypot ant comes from the peculiar development of replete workers, whose abdomens become so swollen with food that they are used by the rest of the colony as living food storage. They are "drained" during famine, usually the wintertime, to sustain the colony, leaving them as "flaccid depletes."

Disgusting. 10/10

When a replete worker fills with food, a portion of her digestive tract swells and displaces other abdominal organs. It can expand about four to five times its normal linear dimension when they are fully engorged with food.

I can relate. I have eaten pasta in such quantities to displace my own organs many times.

No. 7 - Red Imported Fire Ants

Though South American in origin, the red imported fire ant has been accidentally introduced to many other parts of the world.

More than 14 million people are stung by them in the United States annually. Most victims experience intense burning and swelling, followed by the formation of sterile pustules, which may remain for several days. Up to 6% of people may suffer from anaphylaxis. More than 80 deaths have been recorded from red imported fire ant attacks.

These ants thrive in urban areas. Nests can be built under pavements and foundations. This means not only can they damage or destroy individual structures, but red imported fire ants can have an affect on broader infrastructure, damaging land, business and property values. In agriculture, they can damage crops and machinery, and threaten pastures. They also pose a threat to animals and livestock, capable of inflicting serious injury or death, especially on young, weak, or sick animals.

With annual damages estimated in the billions of dollars, these ants are considered the second worst thing to arrive on North American soil since 1492.

No. 6 - Black Garden Ants

When building their colony, these ants will structure it so as to inhibit the transmission of different contagions. Different communities within the colony are segregated by a limited number of connective nodes, allowing for greater protection of vulnerable hive members, such as larvae and pupae.

A trait I could only wish other species performed so well.

No. 5 - Pharaoh Ants

These ants utilize three types of pheromones. One is a long-lasting attractive chemical that is used to build a trail network. It remains detectable even if the ants do not use the trail for several days.

The second pheromone is also attractive, but will decay to imperceptible amounts in a matter of minutes without reapplication. This pheromone is useful in marking food sources as these are unpredictable and liable to change quickly, so not worth the longer-lasting pheremone.

The third pheromone is a repellant. If an individual finds an unprofitable area with little food or significant danger, it will release this repellant pheromone, which will warn others and cause them to look elsewhere. While positive pheromones indicating lucrative foraging sites are very common in social insects, the pharaoh ant's negative pheromone is highly unusual and pharaoh ants were the first species found to employ such a thing.

No. 4 - Argentine Ant

This species is like the Mr. Worldwide of ants. It has established itself in every continent except Antarctica (including many oceanic islands.)

It even has "supercolonies" that extend across hundreds or thousands of kilometers, first reported in California in 2000, then in Europe in 2002, Japan in 2009, and Australia in 2010.

Several subsequent studies used genetic, behavioral, and chemical analyses to show that supercolonies on separate continents actually represent a single global supercolony.

The researchers stated that the "enormous extent of this population is paralleled only by human society."

How can you not admire (and fear) the ambition and the achievement?

No. 3 - Leafcutter Ants

"Leafcutter ants" is a bit of an umbrella term, as it consists of over 45 ant species, but this gang is just so remarkable. Next to humans, leafcutter ants form some of the largest and most complex animal societies on Earth. They are known for their advanced agricultural practices. These ants are not merely foragers but skilled farmers, cultivating their own food by collecting specific kinds of leaf matter in order to produce specialized fungi in their nests.

No. 2 - Formica Fusca

These ants, (sometimes called silky ants or dusky ants,) are fast to learn, and only a single presentation of stimulus is enough for them to form a genuine long-term memory. This formed memory is also resistant to extinction.

Ants of this species can also detect volatile organic compounds emitted by cancer cells. After a 3-trial conditioning, they can differentiate cancer cell lines from healthy ones. They can also differentiate between at least two different cancerous cell lines.

A similar ability to detect human tumours has been shown in more recent studies.

No. 1 - Weaver Ants

An arboreal species, (i.e. they live in trees,) weaver ants are known for their unique nest building behaviour where workers construct nests by weaving together leaves using larval silk. Colonies can be extremely large consisting of more than a hundred nests spanning numerous trees.

How they sew the leaves together is a remarkable feat of cooperation. Typically, dozens of ants will need to form a chain to first bridge a gap between two leaves, then pull them together so another team can hold them in position whilst yet more ants sew the gap together with silk. But adult ants can't make silk, so they have to use larvae to do it, picking the larvae up and using them like little pots of glue to spin a mat of silk between the two leaves. Altogether, a hundred ants might be involved in the same task. This is a pretty remarkable piece of evolution and a testament to the power of cooperation!

[danskjavlarna]

Source details and larger version.

The buzz: vintage bees, some honeys, some killers.

[transingsomeformers]

Got some art commissioned by @geluatekurama of my girl leafcutter!!! She looks amazing thank you again!

[pogomcl]

Anthidium punctatum Canon 7D EFS 60 2.8 f/7.1 1/320 iso 160 Prague, Czech Republic 7/20/2020

[beeingapis]

"Emergent Conversant Verdant Merchant"

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Strange Bedfellows: these unprecedented photos show a leafcutter bee sharing its nest with a wolfspider

I stumbled across these photos while I was looking up information on leafcutter bees, and I just thought that this was too cool not to share. Captured by an amateur photographer named Laurence Sanders, the photos were taken in Queensland, Australia several years ago, and they quickly garnered the attention of both entomologists and arachnologists.

The leafcutter bee (Megachile macularis) can be seen fetching freshly-cut leaves, which she uses to line the inner walls of her nest. The wolfspider moves aside as the bee approaches, allowing her to enter the nest, and then she simply watches as the leaf is positioned along the inner wall.

Once the leaf is in position, they seem to inspect the nest together, sitting side-by-side in the entryway; the bee eventually flies off again to gather more leaves, while the wolfspider climbs back into the burrow.

The leafcutter bee seems completely at ease in the presence of the wolfspider, which is normally a voracious predator, and the wolfspider is equally unfazed by the fact that it shares its burrow with an enormous bee.

The photographer encountered this bizarre scene by accident, and he then captured a series of images over the course of about 2 days (these are just a few of the photos that were taken). During that 2-day period, the bee was seen entering the nest with pieces of foliage dozens of times, gradually constructing the walls and brood chambers of its nest, and the spider was clearly occupying the same burrow, but they did not exhibit any signs of aggression toward one another.

The photos have been examined by various entomologists and arachnologists, and those experts seem ubiquitously surprised by the behavior that the images depict. The curator of entomology at Victoria Museum, Dr. Ken Walker, noted that this may be the very first time that this behavior has ever been documented, while Dr. Robert Raven, an arachnid expert at the Queensland Museum, described it as a "bizarre" situation.

This arrangement is completely unheard of, and the images are a fascinating sight to behold.

Sources & More Info:

Brisbane Times: The Odd Couple: keen eye spies bee and spider bedfellows in 'world-first'

iNaturalist: Megachile macularis

[humblegrub]

leafcutter bee song (unintentional)

see the video on tiktok here

[vhsdruid]

just gonna take this if you dont mind

[mushbeast]

silvery leaf cutter bee

[dinoserious]

invertober day 2, silvery leafcutter bee!

[danskjavlarna]

Source details and larger version.

The buzz: vintage bees, some honeys, some killers.

[onenicebugperday]

Ant cockroach, Attaphila fungicola, Blattellidae

Ant cockroaches live in the nests of leaf-cutter ants and disperse phoretically by hitching rides on virgin queen ants (photo 1) or by riding on leaves carried by ants returning to a nest. They have been suggested to feed on the fungus their host ants farm and are not attacked by host workers because they blend into the colony by mimicking the odor of their hosts ants. Adults measure only about 3mm in length.

Photo 1 by leg9 and 2-4 by myrmexflora

[pogomcl]

Megachile, Anthidium punctatum Canon 7D EFS 60 2.8 f/7.1 1/320 iso: 160 Prague, Czech Republic July 18, 2020

[thisismyideaofhumor]

Sometimes I remember that one of the JumpStart video games have a section where you play as a leafcutter ant, and one of the minigames involved running away from a parasitic fly that was trying to lay eggs in you

[celestialmacros]

So. Much. Pollen.

Carpenter-mimic Leafcutter Bee (Megachile xylocopoides)

August 16, 2023

Southeastern Pennsylvania