top-10-awesome-things-you-didn't-know-about-ants
top-10-awesome-things-you-didn't-know-about-ants
7. They Can Clone Themselves
Parthenogenesis is a form of reproduction where there is no need for fertilization, making the resulting offspring a clone of the mother. A group of Amazonian ants was found to give birth to clones of themselves, creating a colony with no males around and somewhat echoing the legend of the fierce Amazons who do not tolerate male company.
Not to be outdone, the males of the small fire ant, whose queens also practice parthenogenesis in giving birth to new queens, makes sure that their genetic legacy spreads on by cloning themselves. This special trick of the male small fire ant involves eliminating the female genome in some of the fertilized eggs, making the ant a perfect clone of the father. This unique reproductive maneuverings of both the female and male small fire ant results in a nest, composing of ants of the same species, that has the genetic makeup of three completely different species; the queen clones, the male clones, and the sterile female workers with mixed genes.
6. They Teach Their Young
As social insects, ants have a very advanced system going on in their colonies, in order to insure their survival worker ants are put into groups that does various specialized jobs like foraging, janitorial services, or caretaker of eggs and baby ants. What is surprising is that these worker ants are not born with the necessary skills already pre-programmed in their DNA to do some of these specialized works. For them to have these skills they do what we humans do, learn it from someone who knows how things are done. The teacher ants “teaching style” is called tandem-running where the teacher ant will teach a younger ant the ropes by running with it. This kind of teaching, even more surprisingly, involves a two way interaction between teacher and student; the first in a non-human animal. And if a student is a slow learner and fails in its “exams” it will be relegated to some other job that does not require specialized skills.
5. They Know How Agriculture Works
Among all creatures, we now of only four that are evolved enough to use agriculture as a means of survival: bark beetles, termites, humans, and ants. However, between ants and us, it seems they started farming first, having been at it since 50 million years ago. Before moving out of her birth nest, a young queen must first sneak inside the garden and take away some fungal pellets. These pellets will be the “seedlings” that she needs to start her own garden and feed her brood.
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