When pavement ants (the little reddish brown ants you see in sidewalk cracks) have intra-species war they use the concept of a one-to-one correspondence to determine who has a larger army.
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@futurebird What does “overwhelm” mean?
The notion of “counting” by pairing up is kinda amazing.
The purpose of these battles... what initiates and ends them, is unknown. There are some theories. The simple one is that the winners take over some of the foraging territory of the losers, but observations don't totally support this.
Another idea is that it's all about heated patches of sidewalk. The space under the warm rock is ideal for raising alates and the battles occur in the lead up to nuptial flights. The ants take over the heated nesting spot under the battlefield.
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The purpose of these battles... what initiates and ends them, is unknown. There are some theories. The simple one is that the winners take over some of the foraging territory of the losers, but observations don't totally support this.
Another idea is that it's all about heated patches of sidewalk. The space under the warm rock is ideal for raising alates and the battles occur in the lead up to nuptial flights. The ants take over the heated nesting spot under the battlefield.
In the wild they would have fought over flat rocks that rested in the sun. By making sidewalks we have given them an endless paradise, but even so, some tiles are more desirable than others since they get better sun, or maybe there is a sprinkler! Very fancy digs!
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In the wild they would have fought over flat rocks that rested in the sun. By making sidewalks we have given them an endless paradise, but even so, some tiles are more desirable than others since they get better sun, or maybe there is a sprinkler! Very fancy digs!
Tetramorium immigrans have been called habitat specialists. Normally in a wild forest flat rocks on well drained soil in the sun would be rare and the "wars" may have evolved to decide who gets to keep the rock. But sidewalk ants both have pretty good homes, though one might be a bit warmer, so they pair up find out they are both very numerous and similar in size and then go home.
The first Tetramorium immigrans queen to find a sidewalk must have been amazed.
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Tetramorium immigrans have been called habitat specialists. Normally in a wild forest flat rocks on well drained soil in the sun would be rare and the "wars" may have evolved to decide who gets to keep the rock. But sidewalk ants both have pretty good homes, though one might be a bit warmer, so they pair up find out they are both very numerous and similar in size and then go home.
The first Tetramorium immigrans queen to find a sidewalk must have been amazed.
The paper I'm reading attributes the tremendous success of Tetramorium immigrans in part to their low causality "wars" they aren't the only ants that do this. Meat Ants in Australia and Dynomyrmex gigas (one of the largest ants in the world) also have ways of pairing off and sizing each other up that don't involve ants trying to kill each other.
And they could easily kill each other, ants are omnivorous predators. But when two ants of a similar size fight both can end up dead.
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When pavement ants (the little reddish brown ants you see in sidewalk cracks) have intra-species war they use the concept of a one-to-one correspondence to determine who has a larger army.
Ants pair off locking jaws with another ant of similar size.
Any leftover ants from the larger colony will gang up two on one against the other colony.
Then based on things only ants know either they all go home OR one colony overwhelms the other.
But most of the time only a few ants die.
@futurebird one ant is too many {I mean their dying, not their existence}
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The purpose of these battles... what initiates and ends them, is unknown. There are some theories. The simple one is that the winners take over some of the foraging territory of the losers, but observations don't totally support this.
Another idea is that it's all about heated patches of sidewalk. The space under the warm rock is ideal for raising alates and the battles occur in the lead up to nuptial flights. The ants take over the heated nesting spot under the battlefield.
@futurebird So we don’t know what the consequences of winning/losing actually are?
I really find these ants astounding — they live in urban settings, in the hard-packed dirt under concrete slabs, and they seem to thrive.
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When pavement ants (the little reddish brown ants you see in sidewalk cracks) have intra-species war they use the concept of a one-to-one correspondence to determine who has a larger army.
Ants pair off locking jaws with another ant of similar size.
Any leftover ants from the larger colony will gang up two on one against the other colony.
Then based on things only ants know either they all go home OR one colony overwhelms the other.
But most of the time only a few ants die.
Maybe we Homo saps could learn a thing or two from them. We could size the "enemy" up (before declaring war or Special Military Operations), by square dancing with them.
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The purpose of these battles... what initiates and ends them, is unknown. There are some theories. The simple one is that the winners take over some of the foraging territory of the losers, but observations don't totally support this.
Another idea is that it's all about heated patches of sidewalk. The space under the warm rock is ideal for raising alates and the battles occur in the lead up to nuptial flights. The ants take over the heated nesting spot under the battlefield.
@futurebird anty matters, I guess
@michaelgemar -
The purpose of these battles... what initiates and ends them, is unknown. There are some theories. The simple one is that the winners take over some of the foraging territory of the losers, but observations don't totally support this.
Another idea is that it's all about heated patches of sidewalk. The space under the warm rock is ideal for raising alates and the battles occur in the lead up to nuptial flights. The ants take over the heated nesting spot under the battlefield.
@futurebird
Note that you haven't answered @michaelgemar 's question.
What do you mean by "one colony overwhelms the other" ?
What happens exactly when this happens ? -
@futurebird
Note that you haven't answered @michaelgemar 's question.
What do you mean by "one colony overwhelms the other" ?
What happens exactly when this happens ?They take their nesting space and probably steal a bunch of their larvae if the colony can't run away. They may kill the queen ... or they might just keep her. This species has both single queen and multi-queen colonies and we don't understand why they sometimes tolerate it. (but in other cases every "extra" queen is murdered.)
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They take their nesting space and probably steal a bunch of their larvae if the colony can't run away. They may kill the queen ... or they might just keep her. This species has both single queen and multi-queen colonies and we don't understand why they sometimes tolerate it. (but in other cases every "extra" queen is murdered.)
@futurebird @lienrag @michaelgemar Thank you for the full documentary. I hope you don’t mind if I heard that in "Attenborough"
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@futurebird
Note that you haven't answered @michaelgemar 's question.
What do you mean by "one colony overwhelms the other" ?
What happens exactly when this happens ?I mean... a big part of the problem is we need to study them more. But they are not destructive pests, they are just successful in urban environments, but they rarely enter human homes and mostly make things better by cleaning up trash and suppressing more annoying invasive pests. So there isn't funding to study them I think?
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The ants can't just tell each other the size of their armies, also even if they could the enemy might lie!
So they all pair off holding each other's mandibles and beating the other ant on the head with her antennae.
If there are only a few unpaired ants that means war would be a bad idea and so they just skip it.
@futurebird I bet they feel very nervous locking off with a stranger waiting to see if the battle starts or if everyone decides skip it
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I mean... a big part of the problem is we need to study them more. But they are not destructive pests, they are just successful in urban environments, but they rarely enter human homes and mostly make things better by cleaning up trash and suppressing more annoying invasive pests. So there isn't funding to study them I think?
@futurebird @lienrag That’s a real shame — they’re so common I would think it would be relatively cheap to study them (at least “in the field”) compared to more exotic species. And given their potential role in the urban ecology, they seem important to understand.
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@thegarbagebird @futurebird real talk
