How ants grew super-strong muscles after losing their wings
Worker ants evolved strong thorax muscles for carrying loads many times their weight after losing their ability to fly.
Tag: ants
Ants quickly adapt to danger, build sand structures to access food and avoid drowning
Intelligence and resilience can be found all across the natural world.
Plants evolved to manipulate ants into defending them
A chicken and egg problem -- rehashed in an unlikely scenario.
Farmer ants unknowingly domesticated their fungi crops by sequestering them in dry environments
Accidental domestication still counts, right?
Ants plot the position of the sun and memorize their surroundings to navigate
New insights into what makes ants such fantastic navigators.
Most ants don’t do much, and that makes the colony more efficient
Maybe it's time for a vacation.
Ants craft tiny sponges to make it easier to carry food
"Ants are smarter than we give them credit for" is something we seem to write a lot - and yet ...
Fiji ants were the first plant farmers some three million years ago
Most ants scavenge your picnic, but these ones don't need anything.
Farmer ants still struggle with undomesticated crops, study finds
Starving your crops might seem counterintuitive, but these ants have a pretty good reason for it.
Meet Viserion and Drogon: the new ant species named after the Game of Thrones dragons
On the island of New Guinea, researchers have stumbled across two new fascinating species.
Six cockroach-sized micro robots tow a 3,900-Pound Car
Inspired by ants, researchers mimicked the insects' individual super strength and collective hive mind in tiny robots. Each weighs only ...
Ant colonies behave as a single superorganism when attacked
Ant colonies are incredibly complex systems -- the tightly knit, intensely cooperative colonies are closer to a single superorganism than ...
How crazy ants carry dinner 100 times their size: coordination and individual leadership
Different ant species employ various tactics to forage food and keep the colony in tip top shape. Most often scouts ...
City ants LOVE junk food
If you ever dropped food on the pavement, don't feel too bad. It'll get scrapped bit by bit by the ...
First naturally occuring ionic liquids found in ant venom mix
Ionic liquids (IL) are basically liquid salts with very low melting points, that are extensively used in industry. It's only ...
Farmer ants draft parasite ants as mercenaries
Ants are absolutely fascinating creatures. Not only have they discovered farming and animal husbandry thousands of years before us (sometimes ...
Ant executions for the good of the colony
Researchers at The Rockefeller University and Paris University 13 have been studying a peculiar, yet highly fascinating ant species called Cerapachys biroi. ...
Hyper-parasite defends ant colonies from zombie-ant fungus
Last year, we reported on one of the most gruesome and horrific acts that goes on in nature; it seems ...
Ants use bacteria to grow gardens
Ants are most amazing creatures, and there's so much we could learn from them I wouldn't even know where to ...
Ants – more rational than humans
Researchers from Arizona State University and Princeton University conducted a study that goes to show that our 'multimodal, egg-headed, tool-using, ...