Summary: Do ants need conservation efforts? Join Kiersten to find out.

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

Show Notes: 

“Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson

“Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett

“Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

The final episode of ants has arrived. As my loyal listeners know, this episode is typically about conservation and how we can help the animals or plantsman highlighted in this series, but the question I have about ants is whether they need conservation or do we need to conserve other animals and plants against ants. Let’s find out. The tenth thing I like about ants is conservation.

The answer to this question may be both. Within our lifetimes it is thought that some species of ants have gone extinct, but not much research has been done on invertebrate extinction. I cannot say why, maybe it doesn’t happen often, maybe invertebrates that were undiscovered are the one that go extinct, or maybe no scientist has taken the time, or had the funding, to research this topic.

One species of ant that was thought to be extinct was Myrmecia apicalis, a bull ant found outside of Australia. The only species of bull ant found outside of Australia. Somehow this species was able to cross an ocean and settle in New Caledonia. You probably noticed that I said it was thought to be extinct. Our ant hero Edward O. Wilson was on a trip with other scientists that happened to find a colony of Myrmecia apicalis on an island proving that it had not gone extinct. It was a joyful discovery but not one without concern. The ants had survived when we thought they had succumbed, but other ants, invasive ants had also come to the island and the excitement at finding Myrmecia apicalis was tempered with the knowledge that the invasive fire ant neighbors might wipe them out. 

As Edward Wilson said in his book Tales from the Ant World, “The dark fate of this exquisite little species is entirely up to humanity. Myrmecia apicalis can be saved, along with other species still unrecognized, only if the little fire ants are halted and pushed back, and if the woodlands where the New Caledonian bull ant and probably other endangered species yet to be identified live are turned into carefully monitored reserves.” End quote. I could not say it any better.

On the other side of conservation efforts are invasive species. An invasive species as defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Interior is an exotic species that is introduced, non-native or alien and is also harmful in some way to the environment or to humans or both. I definitely think fire ants qualify. Solenopsis invicta, more commonly known as The fire ant, is one of the most successful invasive species of all time. Solenopsis invicta was probably introduced into the United States in the 1930s somewhere in Alabama. They establish themselves quickly and new colonies grow quickly. They can create new queens and more colonies within a year. By the 1940s it was well on its way to dominating the entire southern United States and found its way to Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and China. It also spread south onto the islands of the Lesser Antilles. 

Anywhere fire ants go, destruction follows. They are omnivorous and eat anything and everything that gets in their way. In pineland habitats, imported fire ants attack and consume small mammals and ground nesting birds. In the 1950s the U.S. Department of Agriculture said we must stop this destructive invasive species by any means. They decided to spray pesticides everywhere the ant was found all at one time. That would surely get rid of the problem. But that would also kill every other insect in the vicinity, poison mammals, birds and other vertebrates, pollute water sources, and expose humans to debilitating poisons. If even one fire ant colony survived it was all for not because that colony could start the process all over again within a few years. Thank goodness Rachel Carson and Edward Wilson spoke out against this option and widespread pesticide use was discontinued before more damage could be done.

One thing we can thank fire ant for here in the United States is the launching of the new era of environmentalism. A time of more thought and less gut reaction. So how do we combat imported fire ants? One mound at a time. If we kill off the queens before they make more queens, then we can help. We will probably never extinguish them in their introduced habitats but we can fight the good fight by implementing targeted insecticide use and boiling hot water. 

Another ant that has dominated the planet is the Argentine ant, Linepithema humile. This ant is native to Northern Argentina and has been found on almost every piece of land on the planet. They have colonies that can span hundreds of square kilometers and they are indomitable. A quote form Mark Moffet’s book Adventures Among Ants give us a glimpse of the Argentine ant problem, “Argentine ants are as tenacious in the wars they wage with other ant species as they are in battles with their own, annihilating even California ants with far bigger and meaner workers. Though the Argentines can’t sting and are too small to bite humans, they use the energy-rich honeydew from their homopteran herds as fuel to quickly find and dominate every food resource they can reach, thereby leaving the competition hungry. But their depredations go further than that, for even when native species don’t vie for the same resources and offer no physical threat, the Argentine ants plunder their brood for an easy meal.” End quote. Isn’t it great that this species of ant made it around the world? 

I guess the answer to the conservation question about ants isn’t as straight forward as some of the other species of animal and plant I have highlighted, but what we can say is that yes, they are in need of conservation whether from habitat loss or the invasion of other ants. Humans do have a role in the future of ants. Thank you for listening to the final episode of ants because the tenth thing I like about ants is conservation.

I do have one final comment before signing off and that is a recommendation to read the books I have been referencing for this series. Any of the books by Edward O. Wilson will change your mind about ants, which I hope this series has at least partially done, and the photography and storytelling in Mark Moffet’s book Adventure Among Ants gives you a look into the ant world that will blow your mind. It is well worth your time.

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

Join me in two weeks for another exciting series about an unknown or misunderstood creature.  

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, my very own piano playing hero.

Summary: Ants are such diverse organisms that extremes have evolved. Join Kiersten to learn about some ant extremes.

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

Show Notes: 

“Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

In this penultimate episode I thought we’d talk about the extremes of ants. The fastest, the slowest, the fiercest, and maybe a few more. The ninth thing I like about ants is the extremes.

Edward O. Wilson studied ants for his entire life, give or take a few years when he was still in diapers, and that was 92 years. He discovered species we didn’t know about and described ant behaviors that boggled our human minds. It is no surprise that he included some of the extremes of ant life in his writings. 

Something I had no idea about when I decided to pick ants as my next topic was that each species of ant has it’s own tempo. Not unlike music, this is the speed at which worker ants get things done. Some colonies are speedy as a tornado and others are as slow as molasses in winter, but they all get the job done. Each tempo fits the niche that a specific species fills in their habitat. Sometimes fast wins the race while other times slow persistence fairs better. 

The fastest ants on Earth may very well be the workers of the genus Ocymyrmex. There are 34 known species in this genus and are found in most of eastern and southern Africa. Their chosen habitats are hot, hot, and hotter. Ocymyrmex, or swift ants, have streamlined bodies with very long legs attached with thick segments at the base. The mandibles are narrow and fit tightly against the head when folded. Their spiracles, air holes through which they breathe, are large. Ocymyrmex are built to be sprinters. 

On a trip to Gorongosa National Park in Africa, Edward Wilson came across a colony of Ocymyrmex and wanted to grab a few for the Harvard University Lab. By this time in his career he’d caught a lot of ants, so he was well versed in the best ways to snatch a few specimens. The first obstacle he had to overcome was the extreme heat emanating from the mud flat on which the ants were running. It felt like a stove top, so kneeling down to catch some ants was going to be a challenge, but he was up for it. He positioned himself above the workers, readied his forceps, and caught not one single ant. The workers were just moving too fast. He could barely follow them with his own eyes much less grab them with forceps. A quote from his book Tales from the Ant World, “The ants were moving like a sizzle of water droplets in a frying pan, difficult even for the eye to keep track.” End quote. Those are some fast ants!

Ocymyrmex are made for sprinting but another ant, which is a double extremist, is made for marathons. Ants in genus Cataglyphis are long-distance runners and Cataglyphis bicolor is one of the most heat tolerant animals known to western science. These ants live in the Sahara desert and are mainly scavengers. They search for dead insects and other arthropods that have succumbed to the heat of the desert to dismantle and bring back to the nest. 

Cataglyphis bicolor can withstand temperatures up to 158F,  or 70C, but they must keep moving. If they stop, they fry. Talk about a good reason to keep moving.

Let’s look at the opposite side of tempo, the slowest ants in the world. Ants in genus Basiceros are as slow as ants can get without dying. These ants are found in Central and South America. They are not well studied and; therefore, poorly understood. The main problem is they are incredibly difficult to find. If you can’t find it, you can’t study it. 

What we do know is Basiceros ants are medium in size and rely on their camouflage to survive. Their opaque brown color closely matches the fallen leaves and mold in which they live. They do hunt for food and like any other slow moving predator they are ambush predators. They simply wait for prey to come to them, lunge, strike, and seize it. They will stalk prey, as well, just at a very slow pace. If they are discovered by something, or someone, uncovering their hidden pathways under the leaf litter they freeze and will remain still for minutes at a time to protect themselves. Edward O. Wilson says of them, “Their tempo may be as slow as an ant species can employ and still survive.” End quote.

The Basiceros ants are also an extremist twofer. They are the slowest ants and also the dirtiest ants, which may be a linked trait. When Edward Wilson stumbled across some Basiceros in Costa Rica and transferred a colony to Harvard to study, they realized that the brown color of the ants wasn’t just camouflage to blend in with the dirt, it was dirt. The bodies of these ants are covered in coiled and feather-shaped hairs that essentially collect dust and debris. They use the dust and debris to hide amongst the leaf litter.  

The colony of Basiceros studied at Harvard demonstrated this in an unexpected way. At the university, the colony that was brought back and housed in tunnels made of plaster of Paris. Within several weeks of living in the man-made tunnel the ants had turned white! They had replaced their dirt colored garments with the white plaster of Paris so they could blend in with their new habitat!

For the last extreme we will discuss lets’s look at timidity and fierceness, both serve ants well in different situations. Dolichoderus imitator is probably the most timid, or least offensive, ant in the world. This small ant lives in the Amazon rainforest of South America. Most colonies typically consist of a few hundred workers and a rarely seen queen. They nest in random cavities of decaying leaf litter and do not set up permanent colonies. If they are disturbed, by person or predator, they scatter in all directions. Nothing seems to be directed; although, they do pause long enough to pickup the closest larva or pupa to take with them. The individuals will shelter in any covered place they find nearby waiting for the danger to pass. The colony will reconvene in another random clump of leaves elsewhere. Maybe the transience of their nests breeds timidity for survival reasons. 

On the other side of the coin is fierceness. There are several candidates for the fiercest ants in the world. Our first candidate is the bull ants from Australia. They are in the genus Myrmecia and the largest workers are the size of hornets. They nest in craters of soil and are not intimidated by any creature that comes near, including something as big as a human. Edward Wilson has seen them lock their large eyes onto an animal simply walking by the nest. Sentries will turn and watch and if you come close, they walk toward you. If they catch you, you will regret it. When the interloper makes the correct decision to leave, they follow up to 10 meters, or 32 feet, to make sure you don’t come back. 

Bull ants are pretty scary due to their size, but ants that live in symbiosis with a specific bush or tree are even scarier, especially if you come in contact with them in their home. The guardian ant, Pseduomyrmex triplar, are found in palo alto trees common in Colombia. In 1770 Jose Celestino Mutis happened upon these ants in an unpleasant encounter. He paused under a palo alto on a hot sunny day and quickly found himself covered in red ants that were continuously stinging him. There were so many and they were stinging so fiercely that he had to remove all of his clothes and jump into the nearest body of water. 

Edward Wilson gives his vote for most ferocious ant to the tree-dwelling Amazon ant Camponotus femoratus. These ants are also know as the epiphyte garden-ants. They live in the trees and use soil and vegetable detritus gathered from the ground and surrounding branches to build spherical ant-gardens around certain species of epiphytes. Epiphytes are plants that grow on the surface of another plant but does not harm the host plant. The ants’ nest is held together in part by the roots of the epiphyte. A quote from Edward Wilson’s book Tales from the Ant World tells us all we need to know about why he voted these as the fiercest ants in the world. Quote, “When I turned and walked downwind toward the colony, a swarm of workers erupted almost instantaneously. As I came closer, but still without touching the nest, the defenders went berserk. Piling up on top of one another, they reached out toward me with the abdomens of many pointing in my direction and spraying a cloud of formic acid.” End quote. I see what he voted the garden ants as the fiercest ants in the world!

There are many more extremes in the ant world, but I have already gone over time for this episode. I’m glad you joined me for my ninth favorite thing about ants, their extremes. 

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

Join me next week for another exciting episode about ants.  

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, my very own piano playing hero.

Summary: We know ants are farmers, but are they also ranchers? Join Kiersten to find out!

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

Show Notes: 

“Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett

“Trophobiosis is a tropical rainforest on Borneo: Giant ants Camponotus gigs (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) herd wax cicadas Bythopsyrna circulate (Auchenorrhyncha: Flatidae),” by Martin Pfeiffer and Karl Eduard Linsenmair

“Aphid-farming ants,” by Annie B. F. Ivens and Daniel J. C. Kronauer

“Ecological consequences of interactions between ants and honeydew-producing insects,” by John D Styrsky and Micky D. Eubanks

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

Two episodes ago we found out that ants are farmers, at least some species of ants are farmers and they are amazingly well organized and productive farmers. The other side of sustained food production is ranching. Ranching is a form of agriculture focused on raising livestock for various uses. Are ants ranchers? Let’s find out! The eighth thing I like about ants is their ranching activities.

For those of you listening in order, last episode we learned about the Weaver ants of Africa that live in trees. They are some of the coolest ants out there with special physical adaptations  and behavioral adaptations that help them survive in the tree. One of the activities I didn’t talk about, because I was saving it for this episode, is their ranching. The weaver ants, Oecophylla longinoda, use other insects as a form of food resources. Now they do hunt other insects and tear them apart and eat the bits, but they also corral certain insects and use the honeydew that those insects produce as food. Mealy bugs, plant hoppers, and scale insects are some of the “cattle” that Weaver ants utilize. These insects are all sap-sucking species that tap a plant for it’s sap and drink it. The ants love the honeydew, or doo-doo, that comes out the other end of these insects. Yes, that’s correct, the ants are eating their excrement which is actually more nutritious than nectar. 

The Weaver ants are protective of their livestock keeping them from harm and moving them to fresher pastures, just like human cowboys. They often build leaf tents over and around their charges keeping them hidden from predators and controlling their movements so they can gather the honeydew for as long as the insect lives. 

Who knew ants were ranchers? It’s not only Weaver ants that exhibit this behavior. 

Some species of Formica ants are also ranchers. They will tend similar insects as the Weavers including Mealy bugs, plant hoppers, scale insects as well as whiteflies and aphids. I found several papers talking about the relationship between Formica ants and aphids. They really treat these aphids like humans treat cattle. The ants tend them, watching them to protect them from predators, they will pick them up and remove them from a plant when danger arises (okay humans can’t pick up cattle, but we can escort them to another area when needed), and when the part of the plant that the aphids are eating from begins to run dry the ants will take them to greener pastures. The ants are after the honeydew, of course, the excrement from the aphids, just like the Weaver ants. It is high in concentrated sugars and carbohydrates that keep the ants running.  

Giant ants, Camponotus gigas, from the tropical forests of Borneo herd wax cicadas. They are incredibly well organized in their herding and perform three behaviors to help gather as much honeydew from these cicadas as possible. Some of the ants are collectors and spend about 80% of their time sitting below the cicadas to collect the honeydew as it comes out. Ants that spend their time collecting often focus on one cicada, returning to the same individual after each collection. There are also secondary gatherers that collect honeydew from the body parts of the primary collectors and receive honeydew via trophallaxis, or passing of regurgitated liquids to another insect. This allows the primary collectors to spend more time collecting directly from the cicadas. The secondary gatherers take the collected food back to the nest. A third worker might sometimes stand in front of the cicada and perform what the researchers called “antennating from ahead”. One or more ants will sit in front of the cicada or next to it and gently tap it with its antenna. At times this seems to encourage the cicadas to pass honeydew more frequently, but sometimes it didn’t do anything, except possibly annoy the cicada. It’s so interesting that these Giant ants of Borneo have adapted such specialized behaviors to collect excrement from another insect.

It may seem like the ants may be controlling the aphids or cicadas and taking advantage of their production, which is not entirely false. Many ant colonies restrict the movement of their insects just like humans do with cattle, allowing them to go only where they want them to go, but its not always bad for the cattle. Aphids are not the most cleanly insects and they congregate in large groups, as any gardener listening to this episode will tell you. A group of aphids can suck a plant dry! Anyways, the ants retrieve the honeydew almost immediately once it is excreted. This is an advantage to the aphids, because it cuts down on fungus that can grow on the excrement and sicken the aphids. The ants are also protecting them from predators. Some ants remove Ladybugs, their larvae, and pupae from the plants that the aphids have chosen to feed upon. Ladybugs love a juicy aphid! Parasitic wasps that feed on aphids are also on the ants’ radar.

One of the questions that researchers have about this mutualistic relationship is whether it’s obligate or facultative. Turns out it can be both. Facultative mutualism is a relationship where both parties benefit from each other’s company but do not rely on each other. The previous discussion is an example of this. The Formica ants tending these aphids can walk away and find food elsewhere and the aphids can also go about their business without the ant ranchers.

Obligate mutualism is when one or both parties is reliant on the other for survival. Some ants and aphids have evolved to rely on the other for survival. Some species of aphids and other insects have lost their ability to protect themselves without the help of ants. Some ants rely on the aphids and other sects to provide honeydew, they have lost the ability to go out and look for other food. Certain aphids live inside the ant colony and have lost the ability to grow wings and fly to find a mate. They just reproduce asexually throughout their entire lives and never the the ant colony at all. If these aphids left the ant nest, they would not survive.

I guess we have proven that ants can be ranchers, as well as farmers. Thanks for joining me for this episode of ants as ranching is my eighth favorite thing about them.

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

Join me next week for another exciting episode about ants.  

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, my very own piano playing hero.

Summary: How do colonies of ants live in trees? Find out in this episode about arboreal ants.

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

Show Notes: 

“Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

We are rounding the bend with the ants series and there is no better way to do that than to take to the sky. The title of this episode is Arboreal Ants. There are ants that live in trees and never touch terrestrial earth their entire lives. You thought the Leafcutter ants were amazing, well hold on to your hat because the seventh thing I like about ants is the colonies that live in the trees.

Arboreal ants, which are ants that live in trees, are found on many different continents and there is more than one species, but we are going to focus on one species in particular so we can really see their amazing qualities in detail. We’re spending some time with the Weaver ants of Africa, Oecophylla longinoda. Now living in a tree for an ant is no small feat, so how do they do it? Terrestrial ants dig into the dirt and create many chambered nests. It’s kind of difficult to dig into  a tree, so where are arboreal ants living?

Weaver ant nests are most common in the outer, uppermost branches of trees where the sun light is bright. Here, the ants will bind adjacent healthy leaves together to create a treetop tent. The size of each nest will vary but is often between the size of baseball or a volleyball. They are as light as an inflated ballon and can withstand wind, rain, and enemy invasions. To begin building a nest, a worker ant will pull the edge of a leaf toward the edge of another leaf. If her bending is successful other workers will come to her aide. 

Now weaver ants get their name from the next step. To keep the leaves together they employ their larvae. If you’re think, “What?” I hear ya! The larvae are picked up by workers and taken to the edge of the leaf connection. The workers tap the larvae on the leaf to encourage the larvae to release silk. Yes, the larvae of many species of ants create silk. The Weaver ants use this silk to secure the leaves together. The motion of shuttling the larvae back and forth to connect the leaves with the silk is where the weaving comes in. The nests may last for years because when one leaf dies the ants will just weave in another living one. 

The nests are larger enough to house thousands of ants, but the weaver ants don’t have just one nest in the tree. They travel all over the tree that they call home, so they often build other trees  op tents so they can maximize their resources. They don’t stick to one central nest, they have the ability to move around when they need to. One territory can have multiple nests. The queen is often in a nest that is the most centralized to the territory, but her eggs are distributed throughout all the nests.

With all of these spread out workers, Weaver ants have to have an excellent communication strategy. And boy, do they! Earlier we learned that pheromones are integral to ant communication. It’s the same with weaver ants, but they have a specialized gland that helps the pheromones that they use to create their paths last longer than terrestrial ants. They have an anal gland that helps them make their poop a bit more than just poop. To keep their pathways from wearing away too quickly, weaver ants use their feces to create longterm smell paths. The droplets of worker excrement hardens into a shellac like substance that can last for months. 

This form of communication also allows these ants to do something most other ants do not, defend a specific territory. Weaver ants are known to defend  their treetop territories from other ants they encounter. With the pheromone lines drawn already it gives them an advantage in skirmishes. Their scent is already laid down. If a weaver ant encounters an enemy worker, she will race back to more familiar territory to recruit help. She does this by mimicking fighting motions and other workers will follow her prepared for battle.

So what do weaver ants eat? This species of ant is omnivorous. They eat both meat and veggies. One of the coolest things they target is nectaries created by trees. These are spots on the leaves of trees that seep nectar. This isn’t like the sap that leaks from the tree’s bark, this is like the nectar that a flower produces. When they find a nectary, the weaver ants will built a tent around it to hide it from other animals that might be interested in this pot of gold as well. 

Weaver ants do eat meat in the form of other insects, Mark Moffett retells an experience he had in Cambodia as he watched some local Oecophylla drag a 5 cm long scorpion up a tree to pull it apart, as well as other meat items such as birds, bats, and other ants. The protein is eaten mainly by the larvae while adults typically consume sap and nectar.

Does the tree benefit from the ants in residence or are they detrimental? This is a question that ecologists try to answer through cost/benefit analysis. Some benefits to the tree are weaver ants culling leaf eating insects before they can defoliate the tree. Foliage lasts longer in areas where the weaver ants live. The ants also provide a bit of fertilizer to the tree as well by pooping on the leaves. Trees can absorb some nutrients through their leaves. On the cost side, some of the leaves the weaver ants use to create their nests are permanently lost, but considering the small percentage of leave the ants use, I think the benefits outweigh the costs. 

I hope this quick foray into the treetops with these arboreal ants was worth it, because treetop living ants is my seventh favorite thing about ants.

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

Join me next week for another exciting episode about ants.   

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, my very own piano playing hero.

Summary? Can ants be farmers? Join Kiersten to find out!

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

Show Notes:

“Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson

“Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

Can ants be farmers? In this episode we are going to find out. The sixth thing I like about ants is their farming abilities.

You may have heard of leafcutter ants. These are ants that cut leaves and carry them back to their colony. They are often highlighted in nature television programs. It’s mesmerizing and charming watching a line of ants traveling with various sizes of leaf pieces held above their heads. Leafcutters will fall into one of two genera: Acromyrmex and Atta. There are 39 species that we currently know of and they are all found in the New World. Atta are most prevalent in the tropics of South America but there are two species that can be found in North America, one in Texas and Louisiana and one in Arizona. 

Leafcutter ant nests can extend 7 meters, or 22 feet, into the earth and contain eight thousand chambers. The largest chamber is typically the ant waste chamber which is buried as far down as they can make it. The title of this episode is farmers so how does that relate to our leafcutter ants? Well, leafcutter ants are farmers. I used to think that they cut those little pieces of leaves to eat themselves, but that is not what they are doing. They take the leaves back to their nest where they feed it to fungus. They tend the fungus like farmers and then they eat the fungus, or rather the larvae eat the fungus. So I guess every leaf cutter ant eats the fungus at some point in their life. 

The adult workers ants eat the sap from the leaf fragments that they cut. This is what energizes them to process the leaves. The leaves have to be mulched first before it is fed to the fungus. The fungus will grow and grow and grow in the leafcutter nest. It will fill up the majority of the chambers with a lightweight spongy structure that kind of looks like a human brain and is called a fungus garden. The ants tend the fungus by adding new leaves to the top and sides while they removed the older bottom portions. 

It is unusual that ants are completely dependent on vegetation, but leafcutter ants are. The fungus is actually high in protein and that helps the larvae grow big and strong.  

The largest nest that Mark Moffett ever came across during his studies was in the Kaw Mountains of French Guiana. The above ground soil mounds were chest high and ranged over a 14 meter wide area. It ranged over about 160 square meters in total. If we compared this to a human made structure, it would be bigger than the Empire State Building in New York City. This nest probably housed millions of workers. 

A nest of this size can require an excavation of 40 tons of soil. It must house the queen, the brood, and the workers but even with millions of ants it’s the fungus gardens that take up most of the real estate. The ant population can weigh up to 15 to 20 kilograms and utilize 280 kilograms of leaves. That’s enough plant matter to blanket a soccer field.

Now, this is a lot of living things inside an enclosed space, so it gets hot and humid. To combat increasing heat and humidity which slows down fungal growth, the ants have installed air conditioning ducts. The long tunnels that open above ground are placed strategically around the nest to release humidity and heat. If it get too cold, the tunnels will be closed off. 

The only reason leafcutter ant nests can support millions of workers is because they are farmers. Just like humans, farming allows the ants to support a larger population by creating their own resources. These ants use incredibly advanced farming techniques. Humans will use various farming equipment to produce large quantities of crops, but for leafcutter ants its all hands on deck.

The ants within this species are highly polymorphic, meaning sizes between workers vary greatly depending on your job. The largest soldier ant is 200 times bigger than that of a small worker. These colonies are run like assembly lines of self-directed individuals. Many steps are managed by ants in a variety of sizes. Mid-size workers cut the foliage, carry it into the nest, and deposit it onto the garden surface. Smaller ants with 1.6 millimeter wide heads take the next step which is shredding the greens into scraps.The next step is accomplished by even smaller ants who chew up the scraps into moist pulp. Still smaller ants will insert the pulp into the gardens. Then ants with 1 mm sized heads will lick the pulp and seed it with tufts of fungus from established fungal gardens. This is just like a human horticulturist using cuttings from a vine to establish a new crop! The smallest workers with a head width of 0.8mm remove contaminants from the gardens such as bacteria, yeast and spores. 

Just like any good farmer, the ants use fertilizer to help their gardens grow. They don’t have to go far to get the fertilizer, they just poop on the leaves. The ammonia and amino acids in the feces helps breakdown the leaves and encourages growth. 

To retrieve the plant matter that grows the fungal gardens, leaf cutter ants will maintain almost permanent trails. Other species of ants trails vary depending on where they can find resources, but leafcutter ants are loyal to their grocery stores. Another caste of ants larger than the workers we have already discussed but smaller than soldiers that defend the nest are the maintenance crew for the paths. They will dismantle anything that gets in their way. They haul off debris that they can heft and chew through things they can’t. They widen and smooth out the path until traffic is flowing again. They can do this quickly as they are present on the paths at all times! Boy, don’t we all wish our highways were that well maintained!

There is still one more layer to these superhighways. Worker ants that are smaller than the ladies hauling the leaf parts home will scamper about under the plant carriers and reinforce the pheromone trails. As we discussed before, these pheromone trail are super important for ant communication. 

With all of these layers of responsibility, levels of workers, and intricate cooperation, some believe that leaf cutter ants are the gold standard of superorganisms. Quoting from Edward Wilson’s book, Tales from the Ant World, “So well-marked and powerful is the division of labor among members of a leaf colony that individual colonies can be reasonably called a superorganism.” The definition of a superorganism is an organized society that functions as an organic whole. Leafcutter ants must have every layer of worker functioning correctly to survive, any deviation and the whole organism dies. 

Edward Wilson goes on to say, “The leafcutters are superorganisms that succeed under natural conditions.”

I think we have established that ants can be farmers and very successful farmers at that! Thanks for joining me for episode six because my sixth favorite thing about ants is their ability to farm. 

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

Join me next week for another exciting episode about ants.  

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, my very own piano playing hero.

Summary: Let’s talk ant anatomy! Join Kiersten as she discusses basic ant anatomy, as well as a few unbelievable anatomy specializations.

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

Show Notes:

“Ant Body Structure” - Harvard Forest: https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu

“Ant Anatomy” - Ask a Biologist, Arizona State University: https://askabiologost.asu.edu/explore/ant-anatomy

“Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson

“Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

So far we have talked about some extraordinary ant behaviors and we have so much more to explore, but I thought we should look at an individual ant before we move forward. The fifth thing I like about ants is their anatomy.

Ants are classified as insects, so they have three body parts: head, thorax and abdomen. They have an exoskeleton made of chitin. Chitin is the second most abundant amino polysaccharide polymer found in nature. It is hard and protects the internal organs of insects and gives their body structure. 

The head of an ant typically hosts two compound eyes, two antennae, two mandibles and a mouth on the outside while internally it houses the brain. Many species also have ocelli in the middle of the head, as well. The compound eyes contain hundreds of lenses that combine to form a single image. Species that use vision to hunt for prey will have larger compound eyes, while those that rely on other senses will have smaller compound eyes. All species of known ants have antennae, typically two. The antennae will be constantly moving as the ant tastes, touches, and smells everything it comes in contact with. The antennae will bend in the middle like a human elbow allowing maximum flexibility. Mandibles are super important to ants and they will vary by species. Some of them are extremely specialized and we will go through a few of those species in a moment. In general, mandibles are used to grasp anything ants need to pick up or carry. They are also used to bite, crush, cut, dig, fight, and hunt. Just behind the mandibles is the mouth which is used to eat, clean themselves, and groom nestmates. The last item on the head is the ocelli. Ocelli are simple eyes that detect light. Ant head shape will vary greatly between species and that is dependent on what they eat and how they build nests.

The second segment is the mesosoma. Now, I just said ants have three segments and the second segment was the thorax, right? I did and this is technically correct, but the last two segments aren’t clearly visible. The mesosoma actually contains the thorax and the front of the abdomen. The mesosoma segment is full of muscles and is where the legs attach to the ant’s body. Ants have six legs. Their legs are made for movement and most ants can run fast when needed. Each leg has four segments and a hooked claw at the end of each leg helps the ant climb and hang onto surfaces.

The third segment is the abdomen which is made up of the petiole and the gaster. This is the segment that contains all the important internal organs that keep the ant alive, besides the brain which is located in the head. The heart, the digestive tract, and the chemical weaponry is all found in the gaster. The chemical defense system will vary by species. Ants can have a stinger with which to inject venom into prey or predator or they may have a small opening through which they can spray acid to stun prey or defend themselves.

In between the mesosoma and the gaster is the petiole. This structure attaches the mesosoma and the gaster together giving the ant enough flexibility to sting or spray acid in different directions. Some species of ants will have a second attachment segment called the post-petiole. 

Ant can have separate classes of workers, major and minor workers. They perform different activities. Minors typically take care of the young, clean and build the nest, and gather food. Majors are often soldiers, guarding and defending the colony. Some species will have size differences between these castes and can have modified anatomy to fit their specific jobs.

Queen anatomy is slightly different as they are the only ant in the colony making babies. The body will still have three segments, like an other ant as well as all other anatomical parts we have discussed thus far. They will have wings at birth so they can make the nuptial flight but they will lose them soon after reproduction and establishing her new colony.  

The queen is typically larger than the other worker ants in the colony. Her gaster will be large because it contains all of her important life-giving organs and her reproductive system. Her mesosoma is also large because she needs more muscles to power flight.

As I have stated before, all workers in a colony are female, so male ant anatomy is slightly different. They have wings like the queen so their mesosomas are large and muscular. They may be bigger than some workers but are often not as big as a queen. Their eyes are typically smaller and their antennae are straighter. Their reproductive organs will be large. They don’t live very long and are made for only one thing, mating.  

Now ant anatomy can be specialized for certain species and I thought we’d talk a little about some of these unique features.

Certain canopy ants that spend most of their lives in trees have an internal sac to store liquid called a crop. They can transport tree sap to their sisters in this sac and regurgitate it to feed to them when needed. Kinda like birds. There is also an oral pocket that most ants have in which they store detritus that they clean off each other or strain off a meal before consuming it. Once a day, ant workers will spit out a pellet in the midden pile that is full of this detritus, like an owl pellet! Weaver ants have a sternal gland specific to their family that releases a short-range pheromone during war or hunting to call her sisters to her aide.

One on the most diverse parts on an ant is the mandibles. Each species’ will shapes will be dictated by what they eat. Some are so specialized that they are modified to eat only one type of prey. 

One of the most abundant ants in the world, the dacetines, are small ants with long mandibles that snap together like spring traps. Why would such a small ant need such vicious, fast snapping mandibles? Because they eat springtails. Springtails are small invertebrates that jump fast and high, so these ants have developed mandibles that help them catch this specific prey. Thaumatomyrmex, or miracle ants, have mandibles that look like wicked pitchforks. Their mandibles consist of a flat base that ends in a row of long spikes. Yikes! Why do they need such scary looking mandibles? They eat polyxenid millipedes. These millipedes are covered with dense bristles that ward off most predators. The thaumatomyrmex mandibles allow them to impale the millipedes without worrying about the dense bristles. These ants also have an additional adaptation that allows them to eat these scary millipedes; pads on their forelegs that help them scrub the bristles off the millipede exposing the soft bodies. 

There are so many more amazing anatomical adaptations in the ant world, but I only have so much time. Thank you for joining me for the fifth episode of ants because my fifth favorite thing about ants is their anatomy.

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

Join me next week for another exciting episode about ants.  

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, my very own piano playing hero.

Summary: Did you read that title right? Yes, you did. Some ants make slaves of other ants! Join Kiersten to find out how.

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

Show Notes: 

“Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson

“Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

In the last episode we talked about communication and how pheromones allow ants to give each other important messages and instructions. This is an amazing adaptation that makes them one if the most efficient organisms on the planet, but it does have a downside. Relying on pheromones as your main source of communication can lead to loop holes that others will take advantage of and by that I mean enslavement. Yep! Some ants enslave other ants. It’s not exactly something I like, but it is incredibly interesting. So, the fourth thing I find interesting about ants is how they use and misuse pheromones to their greatest advantage.

We discussed how ants know who is allowed to come in and out of a colony in the last episode. When ants emerge from their pupal stage their body oils absorb the unique smells of their colony. This gives them the key to re-enter their colony when they venture out, and it helps protect the colony from intruders, but it can also be used to enslave them. 

Let’s find out exactly how this works. The workers of ant species specialized to be slave-makers will raid colonies of other species. Workers from Polyergus lucidus or Formica subintegra will raid the colony of a vulnerable species such as Formica subsericea. When they raid the colony they have one target, the pupae. The adults of the colony being raided certainly put up a fight and ants on both sides of the battle will lose their lives but the raiders will retrieve at least some of the pupae they were after. That pupae is taken back to the raiders colony and settled in with the nursery there. Within a few days or weeks, the raided ants will emerge and soak up the scent of their new colony. They believe this is their home. It’s where they are meant to be. They accept the raiders as their sisters and the raiders accept them as their own. So, the enslavement isn’t like what we think of from the human perspective. It is a bit more like capture and domestication of wild animals.

In the north temperate zones of North America, Europe, and Asia ant slavery is common especially in the subfamily Formicinae. Oddly, slavery is known in only temperate areas. Five species of Polyergus ants are known to be slave-makers and these ants range across North America, Europe, Russia, and Japan. All of them enslave ants in the genus Formica.  

Let’s follow a specific raid detailed by Mark W. Moffett in his book Adventures Among Ants. At Sagehen Creek Field Station in the Sierra Nevada of the United States, Moffett and his graduate student watched a raid between Polyergus breviceps, also known as Amazon ants, and Formica argentea. The Amazons were raiding the Formica colony. They watch as the Amazons forced their way inside the Formica colony and then head out the other side with the pupae of the Formica. They flipped a rock to find out what was going on inside and expected to see a war going on between the raiders and the Formica, but that is not what they saw at all. The only fight they saw was one Formica ant in a tug of war with a n Amazon over a pupa, but all the other Formica were just walking around, business as usual. These species of Formica only fight raiders by putting up blockades of dirt. Once the raiders destroy those blockades and enter the colony, the residents just give up and let the Amazons raid the nursery.

Mark and his student followed the Amazons back to their own colony and were amazed at what they saw. The Amazons were greeted by adult Formica slaves that took the pupae that they’d just raided from them and scuttled off with the stolen pupae. Other adult Formica ants exited the Amazon colony and picked-up the raiding party and carried them back into the colony where they would be waited on hand and foot. The majority of the time, the Amazons never did anything for themselves they just laid around maybe grooming one of their sisters as the Formica slaves did everything in the colony.

A quote from Moffett’s book explains everything we need to know about the fate of the stolen Formica pupae, “Assimilated into the wrong society, the ants are duped into a life of servitude, doing all the drudge work their masters won’t: building nests, foraging for prey, harvesting honeydew, slaying free-living Formica that enter their territory, and taking care of the brood. The Amazon slavers’ only job is to go on raids, replenishing the store of Formica pupae as their enslaved workers age and die.” End quote.

The other side of this raiding behavior is also quite interesting. The Amazon ants can’t actually take care of themselves. The literally can’t do anything but raid Formica nest to steal pupae. They cannot create nests, they cannot find food for themselves, the cannot take care of themselves. They must have slave ants to do it for them. 

Moffett tells his readers about an instance when he dropped a piece of his turkey sandwich near an Amazon worker. She walked right by completely ignoring it, not knowing it was a tasty bit of food. It remained where it fell until a Formica slave ant came upon it and took it to the colony. 

The Amazon raiders are so out numbered when they enter a Formica colony that, if the Formica actually fought back, the Amazons would lose, but these species have evolved in this unusual dance for years. The Amazons are now dependent on the Formica for survival. Maybe the Formica have accepted the raids as just another day in the colony.

Polyergus aren’t the only ants that make slaves. It seems to be spread through the ant kingdom. In Yosemite National Park, Edward Wilson came across a raid in progress. The raiders were Formica wheeleri and they had four different species of Formica spread throughout their colony with some of the enslaved ants participating in the raid on another nest. 

You would think that slave-making would be a dead end evolutionarily speaking for the ants that adopt this behavior, but it doesn’t seem to be causing any of them to go extinct yet. It can degenerate into social parasitism though. Strongylognathus testaceus has completely lost their raiding warrior spirit. The newly mated queen simply moves into a colony of another species and sets up shop right next to that colony’s queen. The host colony workers take care of both queens. When the parasitic queen lays eggs the host workers take care of them as well. The adult parasitic ants just kind hang out with the other workers but don’t do any work at all. Talk about the couch surfing friend that just won’t leave!

How did slave making evolve in ants? No one is sure of an answer, but the most accepted hypothesis is that the first slave-makers were competitive species that raided other colonies for whatever they needed and took the pupae as part of their booty and most likely ate them. Some of the pupa survived and became the first slaves. Evolution and survival took over from there. Nature can be so very interesting.

Thank you for joining me for the fourth episode of ants. I know it was a choice to listen to this specific episode based on the title, but I am glad you did listener’s, because my fourth favorite thing about ants is how the use of pheromones have evolved into something so surprising.

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

Join me next week for another exciting episode about ants.  

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, my very own piano playing hero.

Summary: How do ants organize all those colony residents? Join Kiersten to find out the amazing answer to this question.

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

Show Notes: 

“Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

I feel like we have already talked about so much cool stuff about ants and we are only on episode three. This is going to be quite an exciting series on ants. The third thing I like about ants is how they communicate.

Most of us have probably seen a line of ants moving from one place to another at some point in our lives. We may have stopped to take a look and wonder what they were doing or just walked on by without too much of a second thought.  Either way, your brain probably took a moment to puzzle over what they were doing, where they were going, or how they knew where to go.  

Communication is the key! So, how do ants communicate? Two types of chemical substances lead ants through their lives. Pheromones which are chemical substances passed back and forth between individuals of the same species and allomones which are chemical substance used by other species and used by social invertebrates to hunt prey or avoid being prey.

A quote from Edward O. Wilson about ant communication states, “Among all of the organisms that live by smell and taste, ants are the virtuoso of chemical communication.” End quote. Just a heads up, of you haven’t already figured this out, I will be quoting E.O. Wilson a lot in this series, but he’s learned so much about ants and he is always eager to share that I just can’t help myself. Ants have created a unique chemosensory world that no other creature known to humans can surpass. 

Let’s look first at how those ants traveling in a line know exactly where to go? When an ant colony needs resources they send out scouts to find what they need. When a scout finds what they want, they eat or drink their fill and run back to the nest in as straight a line as possible. The scout always knows where her nest is regardless of how far away they have traveled (we will discuss this in a moment). When she arrives at the nest, the scout will puke all over the floor. No serious, she will gurp up a small portion of what she ingested in front of a few ants and then turn around an head back. Some of her sisters will immediately follow her out. But why? She just came in the house threw up all over the floor and then left! What is going on? 

When that scout regurgitated the resource she found she created a pheromone that simply stated, “I’ve found what we need! Here it is! Follow my trail to find more!” Who can resist an invitation like that? The original scout laid a scent trail for herself by dragging her stinger along the ground to follow back to the resource and now her fellow workers will also follow that trail to help gather more of what they want. E.O. Wilson encourages you to experiment with some sugar water to see this phenomenon for yourself. You can use a drop of sugar water near a line of ants and watch what happens when they find it! Please use common sense if you choose to do this. Be careful to keep yourself and the ants safe from harm.

How do ants identify these chemical signals? Do they have a nose to sniff them out? Sort of. They do not have a nose like a mammal that sticks out on the front of their face. They have antennae. These structures are attached to the heads and protrude out into the environment. The first segment of the antenna is called the scape and it is typically the longest and support the other shorter segments. Collectively this structure is called the funiculus. The funiculus is the “nose” of the ant. It is covered in tiny hairs, knobs, and plates, that detect various chemical substances. The funiculus neurologically transmits the identity and quantity of the substance to the brain. 

The information transferred to the ant’s brain must be analyzed in a matter of seconds with unerring precision to ensure survival of the individual and, more importantly, the colony. Based on the sensory information received, the ant chooses her actions quickly and decisively relying on instinct and current circumstances. If you watch a line of worker ants traveling out and back to the colony, you won’t notice how they are communicating with each other the entire time because they are doing so without hesitating or slowing down. Slow-motion photography reveals the continuous movement of the antennae of each ant. They are swinging their antenna back and forth constantly, “sniffing” each ant they pass, the chemical trail they are following, and their surroundings. 

What happens if an ant from another colony tries to enter a different colony? It’s not a great day for that ant, she will be stung to death. This brings up the question, how do ants recognize each other? They all look the same to us. Do they all look the same to each other? Visually, maybe. But they don’t all smell the same. Using their keen funiculus ants can smell a faker.

Each ant carries a specific colony scent with them everywhere they go. Yes! Ants have BO and it is super important to their acceptance. The ant’s body oils absorb the particular scent of their colony. It’s an identification card or work uniform that says you belong here. If an ant with the wrong odor tries to come into the colony the smell gives them away and they will be attacked immediately.

Okay, I think it’s clear that pheromones are extremely important to ants, but how do they create these pheromones? In the summer of 1958, Edward Wilson decide to answer this question. He chose to investigate this using a colony of fire ants in his lab at Harvard. Fire ants are incredibly good at coordinating search and retrieval expeditions for food resources, so they were the perfect candidate for this research. We know ants lay trails using their stingers. So the best place to look of the origin of the pheromonal substance is in the stinger venom, right? This is were Edward Wilson looked first, but no dice. When he created trails using the venom of a fire ant, no one seemed to care. This was the case with several other glands he found as well. Continuing his search, he finally found something with the potential to be the pheromone producer. A small organ connected to the stinger. The Dufour’s gland. It’s a sausage-shaped speck that is barely visible to the naked human eye. 

Could this be what he was looking for? Turns out it was. It was first described in 1841 and Edward Wilson was doubtful that it was what he was looking for, but sometimes serendipity provides. To confirm his unlikely hunch, an experiment was devised using a Dufour’s gland from a sacrificial fire ant. He crushed the gland and drug a line near the colony. The ants flipped out! They streamed out of the colony and ran up and down the line like their butts were in fire. This was definitely what they were using to create their scent trails. 

The next step was to determine what chemical the Dufour’s gland contained, and then maybe we could talk to the ants. Edward Wilson teamed up with some Harvard chemists who used gas chromatography to determine what was in there. They determined that is was a terpenoid pheromone but as they purified it more and more to find the base chemical it lost it’s potency. It turns out that the substance the scout was using to lead her sister’s back to the resource was a combination a pheromones used to excite, attract, and to lead.

So how many pheromones are involved in ant communication? Edward Wilson’s best guess is between ten to twenty different pheromones. The exact number depends of the species. The most amazing part of this is that ants can create new messages by varying the amount of the pheromones released. For example a harvester ant out foraging encounters a group of fire ants. The harvester ant can release the alarm substance methyl heptanone to, hopefully, repel, the fire ants but also call for help from her nest mates. The intensity of the pheromone tells her reinforcements how far away she is and when they come closer they pick up their pace to rush to her rescue. With one pheromone she’s given three different instructions.

Can ants understand the pheromone language of other ants? Sometimes and this leads to a whole load of trouble for certain ant species, but we’ll tackle that topic in a future episode. We went from something as simple as a scent trail to a whole new animal language in this episode about ants. I’m super excited to share this episode with you, because my third favorite thing about ants is how they communicate.

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

Join me next week for another exciting episode about ants.  

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Summary: How do ants create new colonies? Join Kiersten to find out the amazing way new ant colonies are born!

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

Show Notes: 

“Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson

“Ant Biology” Ants Canada, https://www.antscanada.com

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife.

(Piano music stops)

Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

On to episode two of ants, listeners! The second thing I like about ants is the life of a colony. I had no idea how complicated the life a colony was when I started researching this topic. Each species of ant will have specifics that differ based on how they obtain resources and where they choose to live, but the basic structure of the life cycle of a colony is essentially the same for all ants.

It all begins with a virgin queen. When a colony reaches a certain size, and that size varies with each species, the current queen will lay an egg, or several, that will develop into a new young queen. She will develop wings, and as soon as she is able, will take flight from the existing colony. Her first flight is also her nuptial flight. She will emerge form the colony structure and alight on a leaf or rock and release a pheromone that says “Hello! Here I am!” And the males will come flying. Typically they want to mate with males of a different colony, but when males are scarce they will mate with males of their own colony. Diverse genetics is not something most insects have to worry about like mammals must. Depending on the species, the queen will mate with one or multiple males. Regardless, the queen will mate only once in her life.

Sometimes mating takes place in the air and sometimes it takes place on that leaf or rock. Either way, they will each go their separate ways once the deed is done. The queen will wonder off looking for the perfect place to start her new life while the male, having completed the only thing he was born to do, will die or become food for a predator. Sorry, gentleman.

For the new queen, no longer a virgin but with a spermatheca full of sperm (a quick aside: a spermatheca is a pouch in the abdomen where queen ants store the sperm obtained during mating) she follows her instincts to find the best home for her new colony. Based on species it could be a rotten log, a perfect dirt mound, a tree branch, or any number of other places. If she survives the nuptial flight, and that is a big IF, and she finds the perfect colony-building site, another big IF, she will break off her wings and settle in to begin pumping out eggs. 

It can take a queen anywhere from 24 hours to a week to lay eggs. The first eggs laid will be the first workers in the colony, so…they will be female. That’s right! It’s a woman’s world in the ant universe. Disney Pixar’s A Bug’s Life  is wrong, it would have been a female ant that saved the day while the males just laid around doing nothing! All working ants in a colony are female. And here comes the harsh truth about the males: According to E. O. Wilson, one of the foremost authorities on ants in the world, quote “Adult males, with the exception of competing for access to virgin queens, and the food and grooming they receive from their sister workers, are pathetic creatures.” End quote. Males have small brains and big genitalia. They are only necessary during the nuptial flight and mating success is not guaranteed, only death is guaranteed. Once again, gentleman, I’m sorry, but it is a pampered life of eating and eating until it’s time to go have some intimate time with a queen, so maybe it’s not so bad, even if it is a short, short existence. 

Let’s say our queen has been successful and she is on her way to creating her colony. Eggs have been laid, once they hatch she will clean and feed them as larva until they become pupa and then turn into adult ants. These ants will be workers, probably a combination of some minors, that will stay in the nest to care for the queen and more eggs, and some majors that will exit the colony in search of food and water. Once we are at this stage, the queen just keeps going. She will lay the eggs and the worker ants will keep the colony running. The various tasks performed by the worker ants varies by species, but you will typically have indoor and outdoor workers. In some species age determines your job. Young, new workers remain in the colony taking care of the queen and the eggs, larvae, and pupae, while the older ants will venture outside to hunt for resources. We will look at a few specific species of ants in future episodes.

The queen is able to decide when to make females and when to make males. How does she do this? Remember that spermatheca? This pouch in her abdomen is attached to her oviduct by a tube that has a valve. The queen is able to open and close that valve at will. When she wants a fertilized egg, she opens the valve. When she wants an unfertilized egg, she lays an egg without opening the valve. Fertilized eggs will become females while unfertilized eggs become males. 

Let’s take a quick moment to think about this, the queen only mates once in her lifetime and she can lay thousands, maybe millions depending soon how long she lives, of eggs in her life, so it must be a lot of sperm transferred in that nuptial meeting. It’s amazing that one moment of contact gives her what she needs to produce an entire colony. 

How long can a queen live? That varies greatly depending on the species. Some will live only 2 to 3 years while some can live 15 years. The oldest known queen was kept by a German scientist for 29 years. 

Ants go through a complete metamorphosis. This means they go through four stages of growth, the egg, the larva (where they are fed by adult ants), the pupa (this a more dormant stage where they are changing into the adult), and the adult. The egg, larva, and pupa stage are cared for by adult workers making sure they are clean, fed, and moved/rescued should something happen to the colony. 

When workers get older, they do not get to retire to a life of luxury, they usual just die on their feet. Other workers will pick them up and take them to the “trash pile” and leave them to desiccate. Sometimes, when needed, they will be dismembered and eaten. If you die outside the nest you may be brought back as a food resource or left to be scavenged by predators. Not much crying over the loss of a sister in an ant colony. 

When the colony reaches a certain size, the queen will lay eggs that become fertile females, up until then she is the only fertile female in the colony. When these fertile females hatch they will venture forth to begin the colony-building process a new.

Thank you for listening to episode two of ants, listeners, I hope you see why my second favorite thing about ants is the life of a colony, because what a fascinating journey this episode has been!

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

Join me next week for another exciting episode about ants.  

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.

Summary: Ants are some of the most misunderstood animals on Earth. Join Kiersten as she begins a new series about these fascinating insects.

For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean

Show Notes: 

“Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson

“Adventures Among Ants,” by Mark W. Moffett

“In Search of Ant Ancestors,” by Ted R. Schultz, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2000 Dec 5;97(26):14028–14029. doi: 10.1073/pnas.011513798

“The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on Earth,” by Patrick Schultheiss, Sabine S Nooten, Runxi Wang, and Benoit Gurnard. PNAS, 119 (40) e2201550119, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2201550119

Music written and performed by Katherine Camp

Transcript

(Piano music plays)

Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. 

My name is Kiersten and I have a Master’s Degree in Animal Behavior and did my thesis on the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored bat. I was a zookeeper for many years and have worked with all sorts of animals from Aba Aba fish to tigers to ravens to domesticated dogs and so many more in between. Many of those years were spent in education programs and the most important lesson I learned was that the more information someone has about a particular animal the less they fear them. The less they fear them the more they crave information about them and before you know it you’ve become an advocate for that misunderstood animal.

This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it.

This is the beginning of a new series about a misunderstood animal that every one of us has encountered. Ants. Ants are one of the most misunderstood animals on the planet but they are so fascinating and very successful. In this series we are going to find out what makes them tick. The first thing I like about ants is their origins.

As I begin this series I actually have a red, angry fire ant bite on my thumb. The irony is not lost on me that I am about to embark on a ten episode series dedicated to lauding the amazing attributes of ants to lure you into loving them while I have an itchy, painful welt from an ant bite on my thumb. These animals are truly fascinating so I bet I can get you to fall in love with them despite the nasty bites we’ve probably all experienced. Let’s get started from the beginning shall we?

The classification of ants is as follows:

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods): invertebrate animals that have a segmented body and jointed appendages

Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods): a six-legged arthropod 

Class Insecta  (Insects)

Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies)

Superfamily Formicoidea (Ants)

Family Formicidae (Ants)

The scientific names will vary based on species.

When did ants first appear on the planet?  They have been on the planet between 100 -150 million years ago. The specific timing has been hotly debated for many years until and amber sample was found by some rock hounds in 1966. This sample was discovered in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey in the United States. It seemed an unlikely place to find what scientists needed to determine the origins of ants and it took twenty more years after the initial discovery to clarify whether this sample was of an ant or not. In 1986, it was confirmed to be the amber fossil of an ant solidifying the origins of ants in the mid-Cretaceous period, 90-94 million years ago. By the mid-Eocene period, approximately 50 million years ago, ants had achieved their current level of abundance.

How many ants are on the planet today? In the summer of 2018, Edward O. Wilson, one of, if not the, foremost experts in the study of ants said in his book, Tales from the Ant World, that there are 15,438 species of ants in the world that have been recognized and given a Latinized name. Edward O. Wilson described 450 of known species of ants so I think we can take his word for when he says he’s fairly certain there are approximately 25,000 species in existence today. A study published in 2022, says 15,700 species of ants have been identified. The numbers do see to be going up! The ant taxonomists working at Harvard University which has the world’s largest collection of ants believe the figure to be between 25,000 to 30,000 different species of ants. To sum it up, there are a lot of ant species out there!

Ants actually make up two-thirds of all insect life on Earth. We don’t know have many individual ants are walking around on the Earth at this very moment, but it is in the billions possibly trillions. They are found on every single continent except Antarctica, but as soon as they figure out how to live in snow and ice, they’ll be there too.

They inhabit every habitat the planet has to offer from forests of all kinds, mountains ranges, deserts, prairies, and wetlands. There are even ants that scavenge for food underwater. They live underground, in the branches of trees, and inside caves. The eat seeds, fungi, animal protein, and insect protein. They are hunters, farmers, ranchers, and enslavers. They have one matriarch and live for the good of the colony. Ants are unbelievably complicated life forms and I can’t wait to take you on a journey you won’t forget.

Thanks for joining me for the first episode of ants. My first favorite thing about this misunderstood insect is their origins.

If you're enjoying this podcast please recommend me to friends and family and take a moment to give me a rating on whatever platform your listening. It will help me reach more listeners and give the animals I talk about an even better chance at change. 

Join me next we for another exciting episode about ants.  

(Piano Music plays) 

This has been an episode of Ten Things I like About with Kiersten and Company. Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp, piano extraordinaire.