In fairy tales, ants store the food they collect in autumn in their nests, but lazy locusts do not do so, and as a result, when winter comes, the ants stagger in their warm homes, while the locusts freeze and starve to death. Ants are indeed hibernating animals, but most ants do not store food in caves as in fairy tales, because food is very susceptible to mold and decay in damp caves, although ants are indeed able to use some antibacterial substances and means to prevent embalming.
Food that is dragged into the cave will quickly break down, chew, and eventually become juice stored in their social stomachs—ants turn themselves into "jars" for storing food. Now we think that they can't eat directly from their own social "jars", but can only feed this juice back to their companions, or accept the feedback of their peers.
Exceptions are some ants, which collect seeds from plants for their livelihoods, and some of them are even able to sort seeds into nests. This seed harvesting occurs in different ant families and is not unique in origin, with at least 100 ant species worldwide subsisting on it. These ants are concentrated in the large family of leaf-cutting ants (Myrmicinae, subfamily leafcuttering ants), including some or all of the species in the Messor family, the Monomorium family, the Pheidole family, and the Pogonomyrmex family. These ants collect a wide variety of seeds in a variety of ecosystems, but in general this behavior is particularly pronounced in temperate and tropical dry regions, such as deserts and grasslands. Because seeds are rich in starch, fat, and protein, and are rich in nutrients, it is not surprising that ants have evolved to collect seeds.
However, perhaps because of some physical defense and chemical defense "equipment" present in the seed, the seed recipes of seed harvested ants and omnivorous ants, and even other seed harvested ants, are not quite the same. There is a mutual choice between seeds and ants, in which the factors that determine whether or not to be taken away are the size, shape, and probability of the seed.
In fact, there are indeed many plants that in turn take advantage of the feeding behavior of ants and are specifically designed for this purpose. There are more than 3,000 species of plants that use ants to spread seeds, and the seeds of these plants usually prepare small nutrient-rich particles for ants to attract ants to prey on, while the real seed part is harder to prevent ants from biting them. The smell and composition of the nutrients themselves are very close to the insect prey of ants, such as the fatty acids contained in the nutrient body are very similar to insect fats, not plant fats, which are also the main components of most nutrients, in addition, the nutrients of different plants also have differences in amino acid composition. What the plants are trying to do is that ants can carry the seeds far away and take root and sprout there.
In Yunnan, for example, the reciprocal symbiotic relationship between Pheidole yeensis and Codariocaly motorius was reported. Dancing grass is a common plant in the subtropical region of China, but also the pioneer species of ecological restoration, they have strong viability, can maintain water and soil, for the growth of other vegetation to create conditions, with the passage of time, the number of dancing grass gradually decreased, when the forest appeared, the dance grass is successfully retired, only living on the edge of the woodland or sparse forest places. The seeds of the dancing grass have a small elaiosome on them, which is the reward for the ant, who moves the seeds back to the nest to eat its nutrients, and then discards the seeds intact at the mouth of the nest or in the nest, and these seeds are thus taken away from the mother, and they will germinate in this new place and form new life.
Among these ants, the harvest ant family that is widely distributed around the world and the beauty harvest ant family, which is mainly distributed in the American continent, are the most typical, they are both predators of seeds and facilitators of plant transmission offspring. In China, a total of 10 species (including subspecies) of harvesting ant families are known, although mainly concentrated in the Xinjiang region, there is still a kind of messor aciculatus distributed in a vast area from the northeast to Hunan, and there is also a "Shanghai harvest ant" that is considered a subspecies of needle hair harvesting ant, but the taxonomic status of the Shanghai harvest ant has yet to be seriously evaluated.
The worker ant of the needle hair harvest ant is a 6 to 7 mm long black ant, which has a common appearance, much like an enlarged version of the grass paving ant, and is also a kind of ant that I am more familiar with. They began to fly in Hebei in April, which is the earliest of the ants I often observe, probably because there are fewer insects and fewer predators at this time. In desert areas, the climate at this time is also relatively mild. But these ants are so low-key, even in the most solemn take-off ceremony of the ant kingdom, the number of ants guarding the appearance is not more than a hundred, and the alertness is abnormal, I can only observe in the downwind outlet, otherwise the smell on the body will disturb them.
The nest of the needle hair harvest ant usually has only one exit, but occasionally it is possible to find a nest with two exits, and there are usually hundreds to thousands of ants in the nest, which is not many, but the nest is very deep. Wang Zhigang of Yantai, Shandong Province, once tried to explore the nest structure of needle hair harvest ants, and as a result, a large pit nearly 2 meters deep was created... He also shook his head and sighed, saying that the nest of needle hair harvest ants he had dug was still slightly raised, and it was difficult to find.
Needle hair harvest ants are usually very low-key ants, but when autumn comes and the activity of other ants is gradually decreasing, they begin to become active, because this is the season for harvesting plant seeds. Harvest ants are also selective about seeds, and it is said that if they like seeds, the degree of harvest can reach 100%. The harvested seeds are carried to specific chambers in the nest for storage as food for the group. But these foods are often not fully enjoyed by the ants, and some are lucky enough to stay. In the coming year, if there is wet weather, these seeds will germinate and grow out of the soil. In this way, the ant acts as a sower. Sometimes, ants also have to send seeds back to the ground. Because if the nest environment is too humid, a large number of seeds will germinate, and the seeds will consume a lot of oxygen when germinated, and if left unchecked, the underground kingdom of ants will face a total lack of oxygen. At this time, the ant will send the germinated seeds back to the ground and discard them near the nest mouth. But this is not necessarily a bad thing, these discarded seeds will take root, grow, and the newly formed seeds will become a guarantee for the harvest ants' lives for the next year.
The needle-hair harvesting ants I have observed have another phenomenon: as the late autumn draws to a close, the old and crippled ants, gathered in large numbers near the nest mouth, seem to have given up the right to return to the group, or have been driven out by the group. But I prefer the former because they occasionally collect a few seeds to send to the nest, and no other ants stop them from entering the nest. More often, the ants just sit near their nests, quietly waiting for death to come. They seem to have known that they are running out of time, take the initiative to break away from the group, and leave the precious food resources to the young life of the family, while they wander near the nest, and after taking the initiative to move the large troops to the underground for the winter, they have the momentum to fight desperately when they encounter invaders. These selfless lives burn out their last energy for the group.
Needle hair harvest ant nest entrance, this ant is relatively low-key, generally only 1 to 2 nest mouth, while other ant species sometimes have as many as dozens of entrances. (Photo by Ran Hao)
This isn't the only ant that behaves this way. A more extreme example is a small yellow ant (Forelius pusillus) that lives in Brazil, and this happens almost every day in their nests. At sunset, there are always a few old disabled workers left behind, burying and sheltering the opening of the nest with sand, while they are exposed to the dangerous eyes of predators at night, often unable to survive until dawn.
For needle hair harvest ants, there is one person who probably knows them better than I do. Nie Xin once lived in the Great Wall College of the China University of Geosciences, and there was a clearing on the campus, which was covered with nests of large and small needle hair harvest ants, and there were almost no other ant species of the same size. There, he had years of contact with the ants and witnessed their large-scale wedding flights. Unfortunately, this good place of observation is already in the planning of the future construction of the campus. Through observation, we found that although the needle hair harvest ant is closely related to the big-headed ant, it is a more reclusive and restrained ant, and the behavior between them is more complicated. Nie Xin carefully observed the wars between the needle hair harvest ants, which were often not fatal, but ritualized, and the individuals on the battlefield swam and competed with each other, and the boxing phenomenon that was common among ants was also discovered by him. And Nie Xin filmed some videos for the needle hair harvesting ants, in one video, a needle hair harvesting ant that mistakenly entered the same territory, under the pressure of the other party, lay down and made a surrender posture of punishment, although it looked like its posture was like pretending to be dead, but the ants would not understand so, these little guys with a keen sense of smell would not believe unless they smelled death. So, it was dragged motionless by the other party until farther away, the other party let go and walked away. The ant got up from the ground and walked away without a word. This tolerant behavior of only expulsion between the same kind is not uncommon in the ant world, but it is also quite interesting.
However, even the "vegetarians" who harvest seeds live a relatively low-key life, they are still ants, and there is a deep enthusiasm for fighting in their bones. When faced with xeno ants, they also show great aggression from time to time. I once saw a worker ant wandering out of the migration procession of the broad-knotted big-headed ant, and just at this time, a needle hair harvesting ant worker ant passed by. The big-headed ant worker ant did not hesitate to come forward to provoke, only to be bitten off the head. But the needle hair harvester seems to dislike this feeling, and it stops there and grooms its palate for a long time.
Another famous family of harvest ants, the Beauty Harvest Ants, is also a well-known seed collector, and most of them are medium-sized red ants. Their nests tend to form small, volcanic anthills mixed with rubble or debris, and some of these species also clear out the plants on the edge of the nest, making the nest very conspicuous. Like the old world harvest ants, they climb up plants, collect seeds from their palates, pick up seeds that fall to the ground, and occasionally catch small arthropods as food supplements, but they are more predatory and have intimidating tail spines with powerful venom. Still, they're a delicacy in the eyes of the American horned lizard.
Pogonomyrmex badius, also known as the "Florida Harvest Ant," is more attractive. Unlike most harvest ant species, the harvest ants have at least 2 different types of worker ant grade differentiation, of which the large worker ant's powerful upper jaw is very suitable for breaking seeds, but they do not often go out, patrolling and collecting seeds outside are mostly small worker ants.
Why is this ant uniquely differentiated? This piqued the interest of antologists, and chris R. Smith and others studied and explored it. First, genetic analysis shows that there are differences in genetic material between different grades, that is, it is related to heredity. However, the study also found that the availability of food at the larval stage also had a significant impact on the differentiation of the grade of the harvested ants. When insect nutrition in larval food or protein nutrition from seeds increases, more winged female ants appear in the nest, and the proportion of worker ants increases, and further studies have shown that the ratio of carbon and nitrogen in food (mainly provided by protein) can have an impact on the future grade differentiation of larvae. Interestingly, however, this has the opposite effect on the size of male ants, suggesting that males differ in their developmental mechanism from females.
Because it is only a matter of collecting seeds and rarely requiring cooperative hunting of prey, the Hippophila harvester ants were initially thought to be scattered, fragmented, and lacking coordination. However, further research showed that they were able to communicate with their companions during foraging, and also found the convenortin from the venom glands in their bodies. Not only that, but Noa pinter-Wollman and others have found a special "intelligence" exchange model for hippophiles that is far more complex than we thought.
Nova et al. placed the main research site at the entrance to the interior of the nest. There is an entrance chamber, and for the ants, a hall — a hall where all the ants who have returned from the outing and the ants who are about to go out will exchange information from the outside world. Nova and the others simulated the "hall" scene under artificial conditions, filmed the video with a video camera, and then analyzed the number of antennae contacts between the ants, and each contact counted as an "intelligence exchange".
They found that in the "hall", some ants were very active, it seemed to be a "jack-of-all-trades" appearance, these few ants participated in most of the "intelligence exchanges", while most ants only participated in a small number of exchanges, it seemed that there were some "intelligence dealers" among the ants. And based on the results of their computer simulations, they believe that the presence of such ants can increase the breadth and depth of information dissemination. This will help the population to speed up the response to food resources, predators or other emergencies, and enhance the viability of the group. Moreover, such "intelligence traffickers" do not exist only in ants, but also in bees, but little is known about what kind of individuals and why they take on the task of "intelligence peddlers".
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