The theme today for Life Photo Meme at Adventures of a Free Range Urban Primate blog is “ancient.”
If you spend time observing scorpions, you get the sense that these creatures have been around for eons. They seem to be the epitome of the word ancient.
(Sorry about the focus, I tend to stand too far away from live scorpions to get a good photograph. :-))
Ants can be significant predators of scorpions.
Today the theme at Life Photo Meme at Adventures of a Free Range Urban Primate blog is encased.
Ever wonder why so many people mistake these for eggs?
Isn’t is funny how one thing can lead to another? I reviewed a children’s book about animal tongues recently, which got me thinking about ant mouthparts and more particularly, ant “tongues.”
First of all, do ants even have tongues? They don’t have anything that looks like a vertebrate tongue, but they definitely have a structure that is analogous.
In reality, tongue structures of an ant are fairly complex, because an ant mouth has a lot of jobs to do. Ants need to:
etc. With all those jobs, it’s no wonder an ant mouth is a veritable Swiss army knife of utensils and parts. There are brushes made of setae; papillae for tasting; thin finger-like palps for tasting, begging and manipulating; and various grooves and filters for moving and processing food. The blade-like mandibles surrounding the mouth are for cutting, carrying, and in some species, catching prey. From what I read, we are still working out the details of how many of these tools function.
An ant keeps its tongue retracted when it is not feeding. Perhaps that’s why the ant tongue remains somewhat of a mystery to us.
Have you seen an ant stick out its tongue?
Edit: You have to run over to Alex Wild’s blog and see his new video of trap door ants. Now there’s a mouth!
References:
Gotwald, W.H, Jr. 1969. Comparative morphological studies of the ants, with particular reference to the mouthparts (Hymenoptera: Formicidae). Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station. Memoir 408.
Hansen, L. D., and J. H. Klotz. (2005). Carpenter ants of the United States and Canada. Ithaca, NY: Comstock Publishing Associates. This book has an excellent chapter on ant morphology.
Jürgen Paul, Flavio Roces, Bert Hölldobler. How do ants stick out their tongues? Journal of Morphology
Volume 254 Issue 1, Pages 39 – 52
Published Online: 31 Jul 2002 (pdf available available at Wiley Science)
J. Paul and F. Roces. Fluid intake rates in ants correlate with their feeding habits. Journal of Insect Physiology
Volume 49, Issue 4, April 2003, Pages 347-357
And for more gorgeous ant photos by Ian Marsman, go to
Regurgitating post shows another view of ant mouthparts.
Have you heard the buzz about the fungus-gardening ant, Mycocepurus smithii? Apparently the queens can crank out workers and new queens without fertilization of the eggs. Genetic studies have shown the workers to be clones of their queen mother. No males have ever been found in nature, and laboratory colonies can’t be induced to make males either. Although in haplodiploid species males are usually generated without fertilization, this may be the first case of female ants being produced this way.
Parthenogenesis is the development of individuals from an egg that has not been fertilized. Although more commonly known from aphids, a number of species of Hymenoptera are parthenogenetic as well. Recent studies have shown in some of these cases the absence of males is due to infection by a bacteria, such as Wolbachia. The ant researchers indicate that bacterial infection isn’t the case in Mycocepurus smithii.
The consequences of asexual reproduction in these fungus-gardening ants are still under debate. Scientist Anna Himler has already suggested that there is a link between the ants and the fungus that grows in their gardens, because the fungus also reproduces asexually. We will probably hear more as these ants will certainly be given closer scrutiny.
Here’s a great photograph of Mycocepurus smithii at myrmecos.net
References:
The University of Texas at Austin News: Ant Has Given Up Sex Completely, Report Texas Researchers
No sex in fungus-farming ants or their crops
Anna G. Himler, Eric J. Caldera, Boris C. Baer, Hermógenes Fernández-Marín and Ulrich G. Mueller
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Ants inhabit ‘world without sex‘ by Victoria Gill, Science reporter, BBC News
