Adventures Among Ants | The Suicide Bomber

Image and copy via msnbc.com.

Terrorism doesn’t just exist among humans, according to ecologist Mark Moffett, and he has the photos to prove it.

Mark W. Moffett

In his new book ” Adventures Among Ants” (University of California Press, 2010), Moffett describes — and shows — how some ants will commit suicide in a very dramatic way while taking others out with them. (See ” Poison-Taster Ants Help Save Colonies.”)

Moffett told me that in this photo, “the reddish worker cylindricus ant has detonated — rupturing her body to release a toxic yellow glue that kills her and the enemy instantly.”

Just before this picture was snapped in Borneo, Moffett had set a trap at the base of a tree colonized by cylindricus ants. The trap was simply some honey that he drizzled around the tree trunk.

He describes what happened next:

“After an hour, weaver ants along with another species of carpenter ant located the bait and started arriving at the cylindricus-occupied tree. One of them started up the trunk, but then came down again. That one would live another day. Another climbed a bit higher and attempted to walk by a cylindricus minor worker. Just as I clicked the shutter there was a splash of yellow, and both ants were immobilized in a sticky, grotesque tableau.”

‘Zombie Ants’ Controlled by Parasitic Fungus for 48m Years

Original copy and image found Via The Guardian.

A carpenter ant (Camponotus leonardi) whose body has been consumed by the fungus Ophiocordyceps. Photograph: David P Hughes

The oldest evidence of a fungus that turns ants into zombies and makes them stagger to their death has been uncovered by scientists.

The gruesome hallmark of the fungus’s handiwork was found on the leaves of plants that grew in Messel, near Darmstadt in Germany, 48m years ago.

The finding shows that parasitic fungi evolved the ability to control the creatures they infect in the distant past, even before the rise of the Himalayas.

The fungus, which is alive and well in forests today, latches on to carpenter ants as they cross the forest floor before returning to their nests high in the canopy.

The fungus grows inside the ants and releases chemicals that affect their behaviour. Some ants leave the colony and wander off to find fresh leaves on their own, while others fall from their tree-top havens on to leaves nearer the ground.

The final stage of the parasitic death sentence is the most macabre. In their last hours, infected ants move towards the underside of the leaf they are on and lock their mandibles in a “death grip” around the central vein, immobilising themselves and locking the fungus in position.

TED Tuesday | Sheila Patek Clocks the Fastest Animals

Video + Copy via TED.com.

Biologist Sheila Patek talks about her work measuring the feeding strike of the mantis shrimp, one of the fastest movements in the animal world, using video cameras recording at 20,000 frames per second.

Cornell Chronicle | Figs Kill, When Wasps Don’t Pollinate

Original Image and Copy: Cornell Chronicle

Figs and fig wasps have evolved to help each other out: Fig wasps lay their eggs inside the fruit where the wasp larvae can safely develop, and in return, the wasps pollinate the figs.

But what happens when a wasp lays its eggs but fails to pollinate the fig?

The trees get even by dropping those figs to the ground, killing the baby wasps inside, reports a Cornell and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (published online Jan. 13).

The findings suggest that when one species in a mutually beneficial relationship fails to hold up its end of the bargain, sanctions may be a necessary part of maintaining the relationship.

“We want to know what forces maintain this 80 million-year-old mutualism between figs and their wasp pollinators,” said lead author Charlotte Jandér, a Cornell graduate student in neurobiology and behavior, who conducted the study as a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute predoctoral fellow. Edward Allen Herre, a staff scientist at the Smithsonian institute in Panama, co-authored the paper.

“What prevents the wasps from cheating and reaping the benefits of the relationship without paying the costs?” Jandér added.

More than 700 species each of fig trees and wasps have co-evolved in the tropics worldwide, with each fig tree species having its own species of pollinating wasp. Jandér worked on six fig tree-fig wasp pairs for the study. Some wasp species passively carry pollen that sticks to their bodies, while others actively collect pollen in special pouches.

The researchers found that in passively pollinated pairings, the tree almost never aborted its fruit, and the wasp always carried pollen. However, the researchers found that in actively pollinated pairings, where the wasp needs to expend energy to collect pollen, the tree dumped the fruit and killed the offspring when the wasps did not carry pollen.

The researchers also found that among the actively pollinated fig species, pollen-free wasps were much more common when the trees had weak sanctions.

“Sanctions seem to be a necessary force in keeping this and other mutually beneficial relationships on track when being part of a mutualism is costly,” said Jandér. “In our study, we saw less cheating when sanctions were stronger. Similar results have been found among human societies and social insects. It is very appealing to think that the same general principles could help maintain cooperation both within and among species.”

The study was supported by the Cornell Graduate School and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

Ross Berens | Art & Science

Website here.

Where next for Synthetic Life?

MAKE a genome – check. Transplant it into an emptied cell to create the world’s first synthetic life form – check. Frenzied media coverage accusing the researchers concerned of “playing God” – check.

“This is the first self-replicating species that we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.”

Craig Venter and his teams at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, and San Diego, California, have shown themselves to be technical wizards by synthesising a genome from code contained on a computer, and using it to start a cell line of the resulting synthetic organism (see “How the synthetic bacterium was made”). If demonstration was needed that there is no such thing as the “mystery of life”, they have provided it in stunning style. The new life form they have made is derived from information, pure and simple…

Full story…

Chad Hagen | Art + Design

Chad Hagen is an artist and designer living in Minneapolis, MN. You can also find him on Flickr.

Ants: Nature’s Secret Power | Eden

“Bert Hoelldobler, friend of world renowned scientist Edward Wilson, is a world authority on these amazing animals. He has dedicated his life, travelling around the world, to understand these. Through his eyes and his words we will be transported into the world of the ants. A world more wonderful and bizarre than any science fiction. “Ants” will reveal this alien world for the first time, in the company of a true authority and enthusiast.

“Winner of: International Wildlife Film Festival Missoula (USA): “Best TV-Program” and “Best Educational Value” & NaturVision 2005: Best International Contribution / Best Camera”

Clip: Ants subterranean structures revealed.

The Ark In Space: The Ant With a Door for a Head

The ants live in trees in the forest areas of the new world tropics and the subtropics.  Some Cephalotes species can even glide back to the tree if they are knocked from it.   Most of them are what is known as polymorphic which means that they have various castes that have a specific use and purpose in the colony… More here

TED Tuesday | Optical Illusions Show How We See

Beau Lotto’s color games puzzle your vision, but they also spotlight what you can’t normally see: how your brain works. This fun, first-hand look at your own versatile sense of sight reveals how evolution tints your perception of what’s really out there.