Both nature and nurture control caste development in harvester ants, forthcoming in The American Naturalist. (via Physorg).
An ant slave rebellion? Temnothorax often kill their Protomognathus captors.
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Achenbach, A., Foitzik, S. 2009. FIRST EVIDENCE FOR SLAVE REBELLION: ENSLAVED ANT WORKERS SYSTEMATICALLY KILL THE BROOD OF THEIR SOCIAL PARASITE PROTOMOGNATHUS AMERICANUS . Evolution, Online Early, doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00591.x
Abstract: During the process of coevolution, social parasites…
Humans aren't the only species that have had to deal with the issue of slavery. Some species of ants also abduct the young of others, forcing them into labouring for their new masters. These slave-making ants, like Protomagnathus americanus conduct violent raids on the nests of other species,…
By request, I have now organized the ant photos by subfamily. This mimics the arrangement from the old site. For the smug-muggers out there who want to know how it works, I basically set up an "old journal" gallery and put the genus names and links into the caption box. I used CSS to set all…
In a recent post, Dr. Dolittle reviewed some of our recent findings about the metabolic rate of ant colonies. We focused on the harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex californicus, a species with wide geographic distribution across the southwestern United States:
If you are interested, there is a large…