How about a challenge today?
I visited two states (United States) last week. Can you tell which states I visited based on the scientific names of these two ants?
Bonus points if you spell the species name of the ants in the second photograph correctly 🙂
Suppose you were running one day and you came to a barrier across your path. What would you do? Would you stop, assess the height and then go under if you could?
Cataglyphis is a species of ant that runs on the hot sands during the day. Individual ants look for food and when they find something to eat, they pick it up and run straight home as fast as they can. Spending too long on the hot sands can be dangerous. Researchers from the University of Zurich have shown that the ants can figure out how high an obstacle is just by looking at it (as they run towards it), and lower their body the correct amount to run under without even stopping. Talk about a high speed limbo! If the researcher made the barrier out of something the ants couldn’t see, however, then they had to stop and feel the barricade with their antennae.
Several groups of scientists have been studying many aspects of how Cataglyphis gets around.
First, the ants were shown to use visual clues such as position of the sun and polarized light to find their way back to the nest, as shown in this video.
Recently scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology are looking at how ants use smells in the environment to orient themselves as well. Because these ants pick up dead insects for food, it would be likely that they would key in on odors. Using odors to create maps is a natural next step.
It makes sense for ants to have multiple systems for orientation. If your compass fails, why not have gps?
Now I know why I always orient to those bakery shops.
Science Daily has several articles about this ant:
How Low Can You Go? Ants Learn To Limbo.
No Place Like Home: Ant Navigation Skills Used In Robot Navigation
Smelling Scenery in Stereo: Desert Ants Perceive Odor Maps in Navigation
In addition to the Crematogaster from the last post, we encountered a number of interesting ants last weekend.
Check out the lovely Formica.
This worker was climbing up and down grass stalks.
There were enough that I was able to follow them back to their nest.
The workers were quite delicate for Formica ants.
Look at those antennae!
The nest entrance was a large opening, like a half moon-shaped cave.
Here’s another of apparently the same species. Both are on quite a steep slope.
Anyone know what they might be? I’m assuming Formica because of the position of the eyes high on the head, etc.
We have some amazing ants in Arizona.
People always comment on the tiny ants that run rapidly along sidewalks in great numbers.
Here’s a very amateur video in real time, to give you an idea of their speed at about 90 degrees F. I particularly enjoy the traffic noises in the second part. I thought the revving sounds were quite appropriate. 🙂
Based on their behavior, I figured they were genus Forelius.
These particular ants are apparently Forelius mcccooki rather than the common Forelius pruinosus, based on the hairs on their antennal scapes, etc. Dale Ward has a page about Forelius pruinosus in Phoenix. Alex Wild has photographs of F. mccooki.
The fast little ants stretched the limits of my photography skills.
Here I tried the doubler.
One thing I noticed while watching is that the F. mccooki workers seem to have greater than usual amount of color variation.
For most ants, if you open a colony you will see lighter than usual individuals. These are the newly emerged callows. Their color will darken over time. Generally the callows work inside the nest.
Seeing the mix of light and dark colors in the foragers is less common. Alex Wild has a photograph of color variation in Forelius pruinosus workers.
What’s going on? First of all, Forelius exoskeletons are easy to see through, as Dale Ward shows.
Secondly, the colonies have multiple queens and could be genetically diverse.
I have another idea, but without a lab or lab equipment, I’ll have to wait on that one.
Continuing Toothbrush Experiment:
What I can test is whether Forelius ants are attracted to a toothbrush. When I put the toothbrush into a foraging trail, no response.
I’ll keep carrying the toothbrush.
