Ant Mega-Colony Covers the World

Deag writes "A mega colony of one family of ants has spread all over the world. Previous mega colonies in California, Europe and Japan have been shown to be in fact one global colony. Ants from the smaller super-colonies were always aggressive to one another. So ants from the west coast of Japan fought their rivals from Kobe, while ants from the European super-colony didn't get on with those from the Iberian colony. But whenever ants from the main European and Californian super-colonies and those from the largest colony in Japan came into contact, they acted as if they were old friends."

Re:don't tread on an ant ...

[tpjunkie]

I doubt entomologists would be investigating diseases or curing plagues. On the plus side, there were probably no epidemiologists involved with this study.

Re:don't tread on an ant ...

[mckinnsb]

It's also important to discover which species in our planet can actually construct a biosocial structure which matches ours in terms of geographical scope, spanning great oceans without any loss of social integrity. It's one thing to migrate across an ocean - its another thing to migrate across an ocean and not mutate to your environment, which would "cut" you off from the colony. I'm no ant-man, but its my assumption that colonies are identified by sets of pheromones, and I'm assuming that evolution or genetic mutation would impact these pheromones. The fact that these ants can survive nearly anywhere in the world , and also maintain a social bond, is pretty astonishing - and well worth studying.

Not one supercolony

[EZLeeAmused]

One supercolony makes it sound like they have organization (of the ant-ish variety) that spans the globe. This is just a bunch of small colonies whose scents are so similar that members of the other colonies are unable to discern that they are, in fact, not from their own colony.

Argentine ants are amazing

[NotSoHeavyD3]

Here in Massachusetts they're so common and they're pretty much the first ant I ever saw in my back yard as a child in the 70's that I figured they were native.(They're all over the place. Hell, I only found out they're an invasive species last year. That's how completely settled in these little guys are.) Also unlike fire ants they don't bite but man do they breed like crazy.(I know I should get rid of them from my yard but most of the time they don't actually do anything to annoy me. When I see them it's pretty much "Who cares?" which is not my response when I see carpenter ants or yellow jackets.) They're definitely doing something right.

Re:Philotic Web

[Macgrrl]

I believe you'll find they are bugs, not buggers.

Re:Obligatory

[mlock]

We had a problem with earth wasps, which were settled below some bush.

I finally cut a 10cm hole in a piece of wood, put thin wires in two (perpendicular) layers over it, and then with two elkos and two diodes got about 600V with 1Ws on them ...

The first few wasps got lighted in the middle, and when the others tried to help they got roasted, too.
After a few minutes I turned the power off, shook the board over a bucket until it's clean again, and put it back.

Two hours later the wasps used another hole to take their eggs somewhere else.

Re:Obligatory quote

[L4t3r4lu5]

I might be able to explain that... Water is blue [wikipedia.org]

Re:Obligatory quote

[bostei2008]

And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

Just not funny anymore.

Almost as bad as using "42" as an answer to a question thinking this makes you a geek...

Re:don't tread on an ant ...

[Matje]

Well the difference is you're paying for your model trains with your own money, whereas the scientist is being paid with *our* money. Big difference.

The same goes for the difference between a business man focused on the bottom line and a scientist. The public never complains about companies performing useless research, they complain about government paid scientists doing useless research.

Strange that the other replies praising your post didn't pick up on this. (I wonder whether they're scientists...).

Re:Obligatory quote

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't use enough duct tape.

If it moves and it's not supposed to: Duct tape
If it doesn't move and it's supposed to: WD40

Re:don't tread on an ant ...

[tverbeek]

You know what's even worse? There are people getting paid to perform music, write screenplays, assemble television sets, sell insurance, and mix up alcoholic beverages for people. Have they run out of diseases to investigate, plagues to cure?

Re:Obligatory quote

[xonial]

FWIW, it works for everything...except fixing *heating* ducts. The dryness + the heat goes right through the glue, rendering the tape useless. Use as much of it as you want on AC ducts though.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Obligatory quote

[Culture20]

That only stops the first few. Then the others waltz past their stuck brethren, using them as a barrier against the tape.

Re:Obligatory quote

[E IS mC(Square)]

Nope. It makes you geek when you answer "42" to an unknown question.

Re:We could learn from them

[Sinbios]

If not for wars, we'd probably still be in the Stone Age.

Duct tape? Commissioned by the military. Jet planes? First made by the Luftwaffe. Electronic computers? First made for codebreaking. Nuclear energy? Manhattan project. First man in space? Cold War. The Internet.

Like it or not, wars have driven at least a significant portion of technological advancement. Ironic that you're complaining on a computer, over the Internet.

Re:We could learn from them

[Radical Moderate]

You're actually reinforcing Absolut's point. Why should we need war to develop all that cool stuff? Why can't we fund their development on their own merits, rather than as an avenue for killing more people?

Because we're dumber than ants.

And the jet engine was actually patented first in England, almost ten years before WW2 began. The Germans were the first to put it into a production aircraft.