These sea anemones eat ants
The giant plumose anemone is an animal, but it looks a bit like an underwater cauliflower. Its body consists of a stalk-like column that attaches to rocks and other surfaces on one end, and to a crown of tentacles on the other......»»
A calculated risk: How ants judge when to commit their bodies to a ladder
How do social animals judge risk/reward? A new study with ants provides one answer. Enlarge (credit: grass-lifeisgood) Social insects, which don't have very large nervous systems, are capable of remarkably sophisticated.....»»
Farmer ants and drama-prone wasps in spotlight for their climate adaptation
In the face of environmental challenges, one kind of ant gets better at growing food and an African wasp species may become more cooperative......»»
Study reveals how leaf-cutting ants gauge leaf portion size
They might not be able to leap tall buildings with a single bound, but leaf-cutting ants are insect superheroes, capable of carrying leaf pieces up to six times their body mass to cultivate fungus in their borrows. But how do the charismatic creature.....»»
Research hints at how fungus farming ants keep their gardens healthy
"Weed early and often" is the key to a productive garden. Interestingly, certain species of ants are also avid gardeners, a practice they've refined over 50 million years. They too weed their underground fungus gardens, but how they know what to weed.....»»
Ants have a specialized communication processing center that has not been found in other social insects
Have you ever noticed an ant in your home, only to find that a week later the whole colony has moved in? The traps you set up catch only a few of these ants, but soon, the rest of the colony has mysteriously disappeared. Now, a study published in the.....»»
Scientists show how some of Earth"s earliest animals evolved
Lacking bones, brains, and even a complete gut, the body plans of simple animals like sea anemones appear to have little in common with humans and their vertebrate kin. Nevertheless, new research from Investigator Matt Gibson, Ph.D., at the Stowers I.....»»
Extreme temperature tolerance of army ants could inform how animal populations will respond to changing climates
Drexel University researchers sampled a variety of army ant (Eciton burchellii parvispinum) colonies to test how their habitat distribution affected the ants' tolerances of extreme low and high temperatures. What they found was colonies' thermal tole.....»»
Research reveals ants inflict pain with neurotoxins
University of Queensland researchers have shown for the first time that some of the world's most painful ant stings target nerves, like snake and scorpion venom. This research is published in Nature Communications......»»
New insights into the complex neurochemistry of ants
Ants' brains are amazingly sophisticated organs that enable them to coordinate complex behavior patterns such as the organization of colonies. Now, a group of researchers led by Christian Gruber of MedUni Vienna's Institute of Pharmacology have devel.....»»
These tiny jumping spiders walk like ants to evade predators
"Its gait and trajectory show high similarity with multiple ant species.” Enlarge / The colorful jumping spider Siler collingwoodi mimics the walk of an ant to evade predators. (credit: Hua Zeng) We typically think of.....»»
How a sea anemone uses its algal symbionts to assimilate nitrogen in nutrient-poor waters
Tropical oceans are typically nutrient-poor, yet they host vast biologically diverse reef ecosystems built by symbiotic cnidarians (including corals and anemones). This apparent contradiction, known as the Darwin Paradox, has puzzled scientists since.....»»
Kangaroo Island ants "play dead" to avoid predators
They're well known for their industrious work, but now a species of ant on Kangaroo Island is also showing that it is skilled at "playing dead," a behavior that University of South Australia researchers believe is a recorded world first......»»
New tracking technology reveals the hidden foraging lives of desert ants
Groundbreaking tracking technology that has revealed new insights into how desert ants navigate their complex worlds could inspire the next generation of smart, efficient robots......»»
In Florida study, nonnative leaf-litter ants are replacing native ants
A new look at decades of data from museum collections and surveys of leaf-litter ants in Florida reveals a steady decline in native ants and simultaneous increase in nonnative ants—even in protected natural areas of the state, researchers report......»»
Yellow crazy ant males have two sets of DNA
A small international team of molecular and evolutionary scientists has discovered that male yellow crazy ants (also known as long-legged ants) have two sets of DNA throughout their bodies. In their paper published in the journal Science, the group d.....»»
Starlet sea anemones found to be capable of associative learning
A trio of biologists, two with the University of Fribourg, in Switzerland, the third with Universitat de Barcelona, in Spain, has found that a type of Cnidaria is capable of associative learning. Gaelle Botton-Amiot, Simon Sprecher and Pedro Martinez.....»»
Ants took over the world by following flowering plants out of prehistoric forests, says study
Ants are pretty much everywhere. There are more than 14,000 different species, spread over every continent except Antarctica, and researchers have estimated that there are more than four quadrillion individual ants on Earth—that's 4,000,000,000,000.....»»
Animals without a brain still form associative memories
Cnidarians like anemones and corals have a nerve net, but that seems to be enough. Enlarge (credit: Paul Starosta) Our brains are filled with lots of specialized structures that do things like process visual information,.....»»
Ants avoid reproductive competition with close relatives, suggests study
Cooperation is a key innovation in evolution, from evolution of genomes and multicellular organisms to insect societies, such as ants and honeybees to human societies. Crucially, any cooperation is stable only when conflicts among group members are k.....»»
Wings, not webs: Certain bugs are the winners of urbanization, impacting cities" insect diversity
Cities are bursting with life, both human and animal. The smallest of them—insects, spiders and ants—are easily overlooked, but their presence—or absence—in cities has wide-reaching effects. Scientists in Austria have published a study in Fro.....»»