Ants — The Real Masters Of Our Planet
September 20, 2017 at 12:03 p.m.
By Max [email protected]
Linking their bodies in a specified manner is evidence of their remarkable cooperation and memory. Fortunately for the ants, they possess a coating on their armor-like bodies that repels water. Unfortunately, anyone in contact with the resultant clump of ants can be bitten. The ants inject a stinging venom that burns and develops into a fluid filled pustule and possible death due to an allergenic response.
Ants were best described many years ago by Dr. Lewis Thomas: "Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as live stock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, and even capture slaves. And they exchange information ceaselessly — in fact, they do almost everything but watch television."
Ants are indeed remarkable. They have been around since a wasp first shed its wings eons ago. All of its descendants live in the earth, not the ancestral air of insects that fly. Ants are extremely adaptable and successful and can be found in every environment except for the liquid, molten or frozen places of Earth. They can constitute up to 15 percent of the total animal biomass of a tropical rainforest; in the Amazon the combined weight of ants is said to be four times larger than that of other insects in the same area.
The number of ants alive at any given time has been estimated conservatively at 100 million billion. If this estimate is correct, and given that each human weighs on average very roughly 1 or 2 million times as much as a typical ant, then ants and people have the same global biomass.
According to convention, ants are classified in the order Hymenoptera, as are wasps, termites and bees. They arose during the Cretaceous period, and their history thereafter spanned well over 100 million years to the present time. (Compared to ants, humans are newcomers to this planet and we all can learn a great deal from the ant's highly successful years of experience.) Ants are one of the most successful groups of insects in the animal kingdom because they are social and form highly organized colonies or nests that sometimes consist of millions of individuals.
Colonies of invasive ant species will sometimes work together and form super colonies. Fire ants are a great example. There are likely more than 14,000 known ant species, most of which reside in hot climates.
Ants have become the insect geniuses of chemical communication. Their bodies are crowded with more than 40 exocrine glands employed to manufacture pheromones, the chemical compounds used as signals. Ants have enhanced the chemical channel in several ways, variously by mixing pheromones from multiple glands, by giving separate meanings to different concentrations of the same pheromone, and by changing meanings according to context. They have simultaneously added auxiliary signals of touch and vibration conducted through the ant's antennae. The antennae serve as a communication device.
Fire ants have another surprising quality: They can act like a fluid or a solid depending on the situation. It is the first time this duality has been observed in living things.
When under stress, these ants form a thick liquid that flows into cracks to quickly repair breaks in any structural damage. Research into this phenomenon could have practical applications, as there is great interest in materials that can automatically repair cracks.
Just recently invasive "crazy ants" have began to rapidly displace fire ants in areas across the southeastern United States by secreting a compound that neutralizes fire ant venom. It is the first known example of an insect with the ability to detoxify another insect's venom. The compound has been found to be formic acid secreted from a specialized gland at the tip of its abdomen, which is then transferred to the mouth and subsequently smeared on the crazy ant's body.
There is still much to be learned from ants. They live within highly structured and organized cooperatives, a system that has been validated through 100 million years of successful experience. Despite crowding, they, unlike honey bees, have managed to avoid high incidences of contagious diseases. Ants have also learned to carry out their tasks for the good of the colony — the ultimate unselfish existence. Some might say that ants are the real masters of our planet.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, will touch on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
Linking their bodies in a specified manner is evidence of their remarkable cooperation and memory. Fortunately for the ants, they possess a coating on their armor-like bodies that repels water. Unfortunately, anyone in contact with the resultant clump of ants can be bitten. The ants inject a stinging venom that burns and develops into a fluid filled pustule and possible death due to an allergenic response.
Ants were best described many years ago by Dr. Lewis Thomas: "Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi, raise aphids as live stock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, and even capture slaves. And they exchange information ceaselessly — in fact, they do almost everything but watch television."
Ants are indeed remarkable. They have been around since a wasp first shed its wings eons ago. All of its descendants live in the earth, not the ancestral air of insects that fly. Ants are extremely adaptable and successful and can be found in every environment except for the liquid, molten or frozen places of Earth. They can constitute up to 15 percent of the total animal biomass of a tropical rainforest; in the Amazon the combined weight of ants is said to be four times larger than that of other insects in the same area.
The number of ants alive at any given time has been estimated conservatively at 100 million billion. If this estimate is correct, and given that each human weighs on average very roughly 1 or 2 million times as much as a typical ant, then ants and people have the same global biomass.
According to convention, ants are classified in the order Hymenoptera, as are wasps, termites and bees. They arose during the Cretaceous period, and their history thereafter spanned well over 100 million years to the present time. (Compared to ants, humans are newcomers to this planet and we all can learn a great deal from the ant's highly successful years of experience.) Ants are one of the most successful groups of insects in the animal kingdom because they are social and form highly organized colonies or nests that sometimes consist of millions of individuals.
Colonies of invasive ant species will sometimes work together and form super colonies. Fire ants are a great example. There are likely more than 14,000 known ant species, most of which reside in hot climates.
Ants have become the insect geniuses of chemical communication. Their bodies are crowded with more than 40 exocrine glands employed to manufacture pheromones, the chemical compounds used as signals. Ants have enhanced the chemical channel in several ways, variously by mixing pheromones from multiple glands, by giving separate meanings to different concentrations of the same pheromone, and by changing meanings according to context. They have simultaneously added auxiliary signals of touch and vibration conducted through the ant's antennae. The antennae serve as a communication device.
Fire ants have another surprising quality: They can act like a fluid or a solid depending on the situation. It is the first time this duality has been observed in living things.
When under stress, these ants form a thick liquid that flows into cracks to quickly repair breaks in any structural damage. Research into this phenomenon could have practical applications, as there is great interest in materials that can automatically repair cracks.
Just recently invasive "crazy ants" have began to rapidly displace fire ants in areas across the southeastern United States by secreting a compound that neutralizes fire ant venom. It is the first known example of an insect with the ability to detoxify another insect's venom. The compound has been found to be formic acid secreted from a specialized gland at the tip of its abdomen, which is then transferred to the mouth and subsequently smeared on the crazy ant's body.
There is still much to be learned from ants. They live within highly structured and organized cooperatives, a system that has been validated through 100 million years of successful experience. Despite crowding, they, unlike honey bees, have managed to avoid high incidences of contagious diseases. Ants have also learned to carry out their tasks for the good of the colony — the ultimate unselfish existence. Some might say that ants are the real masters of our planet.
Max Sherman is a medical writer and pharmacist retired from the medical device industry. He has taught college courses on regulatory and compliance issues at Ivy Tech, Grace College and Butler University. Sherman has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge on all levels. Eclectic Science, the title of his column, will touch on famed doctors and scientists, human senses, aging, various diseases, and little-known facts about many species, including their contributions to scientific research. He can be reached by email at [email protected].
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