Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell
Sources
World War Ants
We would like to thank these experts for their scientific support:
- Neil D. Tsutsui
Professor and Abraham E. & Martha M. Michelbacher Chair of Systematic Entomology
Twitter / Instagram: @neiltsutsui
- Alice Laciny
PhD, Zoological Department, Natural History Museum, Burgring 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria
Sources
– Ants are ancient beings that arose around 160 million years ago.
#Phylogeny of the Ants: Diversification in the Age of Angiosperms, 2005
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d186/bbe2881027f99bbf1001c240f71f93baf6af.pdf
Summary:
#Ancient Ants Arose 140-168 Million Years Ago; Insects Needed Flowering Plants To Flourish, 2006
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060407144825.htm
– Today they count more than 16,000 different species...
And those are only the ones we found. Scientists estimate that the actual number of different ant species could reach up to 20,000. So there is a lot more to be discovered.
#UTHM Chancellor approves the naming of a new ant species found by UTHM researchers, 2018
#Why Ants Rule the World, 2006
https://www.livescience.com/747-ants-rule-world.html
#New details about trap-jaw ants, 2017
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/05/170509122021.htm
– ...with over 10,000 trillion individuals.
#Ant Ecology, 2010
Cited publication:
#Journey to the Ants. A Story of Scientific Exploration, 1994
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674485266
– Ants alone make up 20% of the entire animal biomass on land.
#Why is eusociality an almost exclusively terrestrial phenomenon?, 2014
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2656.12251
#In search of ant ancestors, 2000
http://www.pnas.org/content/97/26/14028.full
– They construct complex colonies, care for livestock, do agriculture or have complex symbiotic relationships.
#The Remarkable Self-Organization of Ants, 2014
https://www.quantamagazine.org/ants-build-complex-structures-with-a-few-simple-rules-20140409/
#Herding Aphids: How 'Farmer' Ants Keep Control Of Their Food, 2007
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071009212548.htm
#Leafcutter ants are in a chemical arms race against a behaviour-changing fungus, 2018
– Raids and invasions are happening every day causing millions of casualties.
#Adventures among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions, 2010
https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Mark_W_Moffett_Adventures_among_Ants?id=KMdvIKsOJwIC
– The army ant group consists of about 200 different species.
#Army ant, 2008
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Army_ant
– Army ants do not build nests but they live a sort of nomadic lifestyle.
#The Savage, Beautiful World of Army Ants, 2006
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5579510
#Combat between large derived societies: A subterranean army ant established as a predator of mature leaf-cutting ant colonies, 2003
– On a hunt, some species form large columns, up to 100 meters long.
#Self-organized lane formation and optimized traffic flow in army ants, 2003
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2002.2210
#Adventures among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions, 2010
https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Mark_W_Moffett_Adventures_among_Ants?id=KMdvIKsOJwIC
– The biggest hunting parties can kill up to 500,000 prey animals per day.
#Deadly Army Ants Decimate Entire Ecosystems, 2018
https://roaring.earth/deadly-army-ants/
#Army Ant, 2018
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_ant
Cited paper:
#Spatial patterns in army ant foraging and migration: Eciton burchelli on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, 1983
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00302894
– Some army ants specialize on hunting termites, wasps and other ants.
#Predation of Ants and Termites by Army Ants, Nomamyrmex esenbeckii (Formicidae, Ecitoninae) in the Brazilian Amazon, 2008
– Even if the wasp queen survives an attack, the army ants steal the colonies larvae and quickly devour them.
#Attacks by the Army Ant Eciton burchelli on Nests of the Social Paper Wasp Polistes erythrocephalus in Northeastern Costa Rica, 1979
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25083991?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
#Incredible moment ants ransack wasps' nest and make their own bridge to steal honeycomb, 2018
– Most army ants overwhelm their victims with sheer numbers.
#The Savage, Beautiful World of Army Ants, 2006
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5579510
– Interestingly, army ants don’t fight army ants.
#How Ants Wage War, 2011
https://www.pri.org/stories/2011-11-16/how-ants-wage-war
– Other species have worker classes that have big squared heads.
#Multi-Phase Defense by the Big-Headed Ant, Pheidole obtusospinosa, Against Raiding Army Ants, 2010
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3014660/
– Leafcutter ants form some of the largest and most complex societies.
#Leafcutter ants' success due to more than crop selection, 2018
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180509104921.htm
#Why leafcutter ants evolved into sophisticated farmers, 2016
https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/why-leafcutter-ants-evolved-into-sophisticated-farmers/
– They live in extensive nests many meters deep and across, harbouring millions of citizens with a highly sophisticated division of labor.
#Leafcutter ants' success due to more than crop selection, 2018
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180509104921.htm
#Possible fungal control for leaf-cutter ants, 2015
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151007144850.htm
– Like huge soldiers more than one hundred times more massive than a worker.
#Adventures among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions, 2010
https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Mark_W_Moffett_Adventures_among_Ants?id=KMdvIKsOJwIC
– The diet of Nomamyrmex esenbeckii consists mostly of the larvae of other ants.
#Predation on an Atta cephalotes Colony by an Army Ant, Nomamyrmex esenbeckii, 1998
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1744-7429.1998.tb00110.x
#Combat between large societies: A subterranean army ant as a predator of mature leaf-cutting ant colonies, 2004
#Predation on an Atta cephalotes Colony by an Army Ant, Nomamyrmex esenbeckii, 1998
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1744-7429.1998.tb00110.x
– A frontline develops that can be a few meters wide and a meter deep.
#Combat between large societies: A subterranean army ant as a predator of mature leaf-cutting ant colonies, 2004
#Predation on an Atta cephalotes Colony by an Army Ant, Nomamyrmex esenbeckii, 1998
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1744-7429.1998.tb00110.x
– The leafcutter soldiers try to cut through the army ant’s heads. Smaller leafcutter workers help by grabbing the enemies.
#Combat between large societies: A subterranean army ant as a predator of mature leaf-cutting ant colonies, 2004
– Workers of N. esenbeckii try to swarm the enemy soldiers and sting them to death.
#Combat between large societies: A subterranean army ant as a predator of mature leaf-cutting ant colonies, 2004
– Regardless who has won the war, thousands lay slain on the battlefield.
#The hidden big predators of the Neotropics: The behaviour, diet, and impact of New World army ants (Ecitoninae), 2008
#Predation on an Atta cephalotes Colony by an Army Ant, Nomamyrmex esenbeckii, 1996
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1744-7429.1998.tb00110.x
– Species that form super colonies over multiple continents.
#The global expansion of a single ant supercolony, 2010
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3352483/
Further reading:
– Ants are Eusocial
#An Introduction to Eusociality, 2010
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/an-introduction-to-eusociality-15788128
– N. esenbeckii and their heavy armour
#A guide to common ants of the Amazon rainforest, 2019
http://www.myrmecos.net/2012/12/28/a-guide-to-common-ants-of-the-amazon-rainforest/