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Ants: Extremes

Ants: Extremes

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 Summary: Ants are such diverse organisms that extremes have evolved. Join Kiersten to learn about some ant extremes. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. In this penultimate episode I thought we’d talk about the extremes of ants. The fastest, the slowest, the fiercest, and maybe a few more. The ninth thing I like about ants is the extremes. Edward O. Wilson studied ants for his entire life, give or take a few years when he was still in diapers, and that was 92 years. He discovered species we didn’t know about and described ant behaviors that boggled our human minds. It is no surprise that he included some of the extremes of ant life in his writings. Something I had no idea about when I decided to pick ants as my next topic was that each species of ant has it’s own tempo. Not unlike music, this is the speed at which worker ants get things done. Some colonies are speedy as a tornado and others are as slow as molasses in winter, but they all get the job done. Each tempo fits the niche that a specific species fills in their habitat. Sometimes fast wins the race while other times slow persistence fairs better. The fastest ants on Earth may very well be the workers of the genus Ocymyrmex. There are 34 known species in this genus and are found in most of eastern and southern Africa. Their chosen habitats are hot, hot, and hotter. Ocymyrmex, or swift ants, have streamlined bodies with very long legs attached with thick segments at the base. The mandibles are narrow and fit tightly against the head when folded. Their spiracles, air holes through which they breathe, are large. Ocymyrmex are built to be sprinters. On a trip to Gorongosa National Park in Africa, Edward Wilson came across a colony of Ocymyrmex and wanted to grab a few for the Harvard University Lab. By this time in his career he’d caught a lot of ants, so he was well versed in the best ways to snatch a few specimens. The first obstacle he had to overcome was the extreme heat emanating from the mud flat on which the ants were running. It felt like a stove top, so kneeling down to catch some ants was going to be a challenge, but he was up for it. He positioned himself above the workers, readied his forceps, and caught not one single ant. The workers were just moving too fast. He could barely follow them with his own eyes much less grab them with forceps. A quote from his book Tales from the Ant World, “The ants were moving like a sizzle of water droplets in a frying pan, difficult even for the eye to keep track.” End quote. Those are some fast ants! Ocymyrmex are made for sprinting but another ant, which is a double extremist, is made for marathons. Ants in genus Cataglyphis are long-distance runners and Cataglyphis bicolor is one of the most heat tolerant animals known to western science. These ants live in the Sahara desert and are mainly scavengers. They search for dead insects and other arthropods that have succumbed to the heat of the desert to dismantle and bring back to the nest. Cataglyphis bicolor can withstand temperatures up to 158F, or 70C, but they must keep moving. If they stop, they fry. Talk about a good reason to keep moving. Let’s look at the opposite side of tempo, the slowest ants in the world. Ants in genus Basiceros are as slow as ants can get without dying. These ants are found in Central and South America. They are not well studied and; therefore, poorly understood. The main problem is they are incredibly difficult to find. If you can’t find it, you can’t study it. What we do know is Basiceros ants are medium in size and rely on their camouflage to survive. Their opaque brown color closely matches the fallen leaves and mold in which they live. They do hunt for food and like any other slow moving predator they are ambush predators. They simply wait for prey to come to them, lunge, strike, and seize it. They will stalk prey, as well, just at a very slow pace. If they are discovered by something, or someone, uncovering their hidden pathways under the leaf litter they freeze and will remain still for minutes at a time to protect themselves. Edward O. Wilson says of them, “Their tempo may be as slow as an ant species can employ ...
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