When eight-year-old Hugo Deans discovered a handful of BB-sized objects lying near an ant nest beneath a log in his backyard, he thought they were a type of seed. His father, Andrew Deans, professor of entomology at Penn ...
Plants & Animals
Sep 2, 2022
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5245
(PhysOrg.com) -- There are over 1100 species of Pheidole genus ants, and most individual ants belong to either the worker or soldier caste. In only eight of the Pheidole species, some individuals can belong to a "supersoldier" ...
(Phys.org) —Ants have long been known to choose the shortest of several routes to a food source, but what happens when the shortest route is not the fastest? This situation can occur, for example, when ants are forced to ...
Turtle ant soldiers look like real-life creatures straight out of a Japanese anime film. These tree-dwelling insects scuttle to and fro sporting shiny, adorably oversized heads, which they use to block the entrances of their ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 9, 2020
4
2433
Amongst the countless fascinating plants and animals inhabiting the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia, there are the spectacular "exploding ants", a group of arboreal, canopy dwelling ants nicknamed for their unique ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 19, 2018
0
661
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists from the US and UK have discovered four new species of parasitic fungi in the Brazilian rainforests. The fungi attack four distinct species of ants and release mind-altering chemicals that gradually ...
When ants go exploring in search of food they end up choosing collective routes that fit statistical distributions of probability. This has been demonstrated by a team of mathematicians after analysing the trails of a species ...
Mathematics
May 12, 2015
1
140
Millions of years before humans discovered agriculture, vast farming systems were thriving beneath the surface of the Earth. The subterranean farms, which produced various types of fungi, were cultivated and maintained by ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 11, 2017
2
857
About one tenth of the world's ants are close relatives; they all belong to just one genus out of 323, called Pheidole. "If you go into any tropical forest and take a stroll, you will step on one of these ants," says Okinawa ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 24, 2014
0
0
(Phys.org)—A pair of researchers with Singapore Botanic Gardens and the National University of Singapore has found and studied a nest of Tyrannomyrmex rex, a first for the rare species of ant. In their paper published in ...
