A team of researchers from the New York University School of Medicine and Arizona State University has found that a certain ant species is unique in that worker ants can increase and shrink their brain size when needed. In ...
In one species of ants, workers duel to establish new leadership after the death of their queen. While these sparring matches stretch for more than a month, changes in behavior and gene expression in the first three days ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 18, 2021
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Ants are one of the most successful groups of animals on the planet, occupying anywhere from temperate soil to tropical rainforests, desert dunes and kitchen counters. They're social insects and their team-working abilities ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 19, 2020
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A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania has found that some Indian jumping ant workers can transition to a queen-like state if their queen dies. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the ...
Through early adulthood, exposure to new experiences—like learning to drive a car or memorizing information for an exam—triggers change in the human brain, re-wiring neural pathways to imprint memories and modify behavior. ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 12, 2019
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Have you have seen ants this year? In Britain, they were probably black garden ants, known as Lasius niger—Europe's most common ant. One of somewhere between 12,000 and 20,000 species, they are the scourge of gardeners—but ...
Plants & Animals
Jun 21, 2019
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Tropical fire ants (Solenopsis geminata), originally from central and South America, are a highly aggressive, invasive ecological pest. Our new research has shed light on how they successfully establish new colonies.
Plants & Animals
Mar 22, 2019
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When a pathogen enters their colony, ants change their behavior to avoid the outbreak of disease. In this way, they protect the queen, brood and young workers from becoming ill. These results, from a study carried out in ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 22, 2018
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353
Ants are tidy—when they move into a new nest box, they spend the first days cleaning it thoroughly, just like humans moving into a new home. Many ants produce highly acidic chemicals from specialized glands in their body. ...
Plants & Animals
Oct 10, 2018
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Worker ants, despite their diligence, seldom encounter opportunities for social mobility. In many species, individuals adhere to strict caste roles: queens lay eggs and workers take care of almost everything else, including ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 26, 2018
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