By choosing to face death alone, the ants were making a truly altruistic act.
BBC: Earth News - Heroic altruistic ants face death alone to save colony
The US-based scientists discovered that older ants were significantly less efficient at cutting leaves.
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It is believed that leaf-cutter ants' mandibles also contain zinc-enriched biomaterials, which strengthen them.
BBC: Earth News - Leaf-cutter ants retire when their teeth wear out
"We are like little ants pinching the food of the giant but we pinch, " he says.
Workers already scuttle about in the 200, 000-square-foot plant like ants on a hot plate.
He had no argument with its work on bees, wasps, and ants, he said.
Neither the best technology, nor hard-working ants, can map very far underground, and rock formations differ.
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Insects such as bees and ants use it to produce their drones, for example.
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But in Malaysia, at least, a large number of Myrmarachne are poor mimics of particular ants.
Who or what has defended those last outposts of ferns, butterflies, beetles and ants from humankind?
He could raise people from the dead, even when ants were already crawling over them.
Ants in more temperate climates often lay down chemical trails, but Cataglyphis, apparently, does not.
Perhaps humans should keep in mind their real competition for best workers in the world: Ants.
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There exists a juvenile-growth hormone which prevents the ants from maturing past the drone stage.
It seems that ants are not just dumb miracles of evolution - they can learn from experience.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Ants - learning from the collective
Beneath the hunter crawled diligent ants, burdened like respectable little people with heavy loads for their households.
In the Okinawan colony, all ants reproduce regardless of their age or their task in the nest.
"They don't sting like fire ants do, but aside from that they are much bigger pests, " he said.
The crazy ants nest in walls, crawl spaces, house plants or empty containers in the yard, researchers said.
Goats, red ants, even berries are pushing out native species found nowhere else but on this isolated archipelago.
Bees and ants are great at it, but they can only do it because they are all sisters.
But in the case of weaver ants in Africa, this description may be more than just a metaphor.
Dubbed "coralbots", they are being designed to work in groups, in a similar manner to bees and ants.
They tried the ant plant, both with and without ants, and another acacia plant, also with and without ants.
Other large herbivores, especially giraffes, will eat the plants, probably because they are not as bothered by the ants.
The crazy ants are going so crazy, in fact, that some people want their fire ants back, LeBrun said.
NPR's John Nielsen reports dancing ants, disgusting worms and the world's laziest mole-rats have the attention of serious scientists.
They found that ants were prepared to rescue fellow ants held in a nylon snare and showing obvious distress.
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Tunisian ants ran through this maze like it was a racetrack, he says.
The net effect: the closer, more reliable, and plentiful the food, the stronger the trail, the more ants follow.
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