Thursday, April 23, 2009

Ants are sweet...




























I have recently become fascinated with ants.  This ant above is a bullet ant.  It has the most painful sting according to the sting pain index.  It is also called the 24 hour ant because if you get bitten the pain will last for 24 hours.  

If you still aren't impressed, please consider the following facts about ants:

  • They have existed for the most part unchanged for about 100 million years (This is over 100 times longer than us)
  • They have colonies in every type of environment/continent except Antarctica
  • They have co-evolved mutually beneficial relationships with other organisms such as: caterpillars, aphids, trees
  • Certain types of ants will enslave other ant colonies and put them to work for their own colony  
  • Ants are social insects that work together like a single organism to support their queen who controls their reproductive success




 
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5 comments:

  1. jillianApril 24, 2009 at 9:47 PM

    http://www.playlist.com/searchbeta/tracks#army%20ants

    you and tom should be bff.

    ReplyDelete
  2. PeteApril 25, 2009 at 10:08 AM

    Maybe he missed his true calling as a documentary narrator. I have to say though, he is no David Attenborough, haha.

    ReplyDelete
  3. jillianApril 25, 2009 at 10:25 AM

    always talking shit on tom. he's going to be your brother-in-law, so you should probably be nice.

    ReplyDelete
  4. davesurrealistApril 28, 2009 at 11:50 AM

    Pete,
    I too find ants and bees quite fascinating. Maybe we should quit this field and follow our true path as antkeepers. Then we can enslave other ant colonies and make one do design and the other do development.

    ReplyDelete
  5. PeteMay 6, 2009 at 1:43 PM

    They even clear out their dead:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/05/science/05obdead.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

    Thanks Andrea!

    ReplyDelete

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