(BBC) A single mega-colony of ants has colonised much of the world, scientists have discovered.
Argentine ants living in vast numbers across Europe, the US and Japan belong to the same interrelated colony, and will refuse to fight one another.
The colony may be the largest of its type ever known for any insect species, and could rival humans in the scale of its world domination.
What’s more, people are unwittingly helping the mega-colony stick together.
Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) were once native to South America. But people have unintentionally introduced the ants to all continents except Antarctica.
Will Argentine ants be our ultimate insect overlords?
(Mississippi State University Extension Service) The Argentine ant has established itself as a major pest in this country because of its ability to nest in many diverse habitats, its production of uncountable numbers of individuals due to the many reproductive queens in a colony, an omnivorous diet, which enables these ants to thrive on a great variety of foods, the ability to coexist amiably with other colonies of the same species, and because they exterminate competing species of ants in their area. They nest in soil, both exposed and under cover, rotten wood, standing dead trees, refuse piles, bird nests, bee hives, and many other places. The number of individuals of this species present in an area where they are established is mind boggling with large files of workers running up and down trees, on fences, on the ground, and everywhere else. Argentine ants were considered to be one of the most persistant and troublesome of the house infesting ants by Marion Smith.
Wipe your chin. Don’t make it easy for the ants.
(Thanks, Dependable Renegade!)
More Ants!
AntWeb has all kinds of cool information about our little crawly friends.
GigaPan project has created an image of an Eutetramorium mocquerysi, an ant from Madagascar, composed of 400 pictures, magnified 400x using a scanning electron microscope. Ants have claws!
GigaPan has tons more photos of some very tiny critters, but the GigaPan process is also used to take incredibly detailed panoramic photographs as well, like the one of President Obama’s inaugural address, where you can zoom in to pick out individual faces from the massive crowd. If you have an extra $300 laying around, you too can make photographs like these.
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