Post AkcegZf0BqfvgWPICO by vanderZwan@vis.social
(DIR) More posts by vanderZwan@vis.social
(DIR) Post #Akb0O5av2qeDtsAUGu by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-08-03T16:47:57Z
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Ants are persistent. These majors are chewing on a tube and not making much visible progress. But given a month or two I have a photo of what they can do. (see next post) I really wish that places that sell ant supplies would only sell the harder kind of clear plastic. The softer kind just won't cut it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6UN7W-E0ro
(DIR) Post #Akb0Wu4vEN4Sn2P9qC by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-08-03T16:49:26Z
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(DIR) Post #Akb0ksnWmxJUs9w0bA by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-08-03T16:52:05Z
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Something about August make my Camponotus discolor colony crazy like this. They never chew at their nest for the rest of the year... but in August when their numbers are highest they get a little ... intense. The big black carpenter ants (Camponotus pennslyvanicus) don't seem to suffer from the summer fever... and good thing they have much more powerful mandible than these smaller Carpenter ants.
(DIR) Post #Akb1PZwHoGRSFwR81w by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-08-03T16:59:28Z
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@DaveMWilburn LOL. It's all very cat like.
(DIR) Post #Akb1csQaNeHjMWwxeq by richpuchalsky@mastodon.social
2024-08-03T17:00:55Z
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@futurebird I assume that ants are naturally really worked up about finding nearby nests of different-species ants and get revved up for extermination. No idea whether this is accurate across types of ants or whether it is an ant stereotype
(DIR) Post #Akb2EFNrzbpjH4V0bY by vanderZwan@vis.social
2024-08-03T17:08:35Z
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@futurebird "when their numbers are highest"I'm getting "locusts epigenetically undergo drastic changes if there's enough of them" vibes from this, could something like that apply here?
(DIR) Post #Akb2Wnc9SoZEeO1eWe by futurebird@sauropods.win
2024-08-03T17:11:57Z
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@vanderZwan The personality of an ant colony is very dependent on colony size. The personality can be observed in how cautious ants are when foraging, the number of foragers and how far they are willing to go from the nest. A new colony with only 10 workers will have one ant out at most. A colony of 100 might have 25 or more ants out at once. There is some way that they have some sense of how "big" they are as a superorganism and it changes them-- but what is the mechanism?
(DIR) Post #Akb3ANxyF490gh6jEe by doctormo@floss.social
2024-08-03T17:18:51Z
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@futurebird Do ants get antsy like locusts swarming behaviours because of the increase numbers of physical interactions they have?Those phase shifts in behaviour are always interesting and you sort of see it with humans when they swarm... I mean form a mob.
(DIR) Post #Akb9AS77QA41HAnl8S by Pollinators@epicure.social
2024-08-03T18:26:13Z
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@futurebird. The ant team has perseverance.
(DIR) Post #AkbHiSdYmUqoNUheoS by barrygoldman1@sauropods.win
2024-08-03T20:02:07Z
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@futurebird "they get a little... ANTSY?"
(DIR) Post #AkbPxxnfzzFj0QL1wu by andrewfeeney@phpc.social
2024-08-03T21:34:33Z
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@futurebird @vanderZwan That is so fascinating!
(DIR) Post #AkbTDvp3Q4hxMrHwaO by andrewfeeney@phpc.social
2024-08-03T22:10:25Z
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@futurebird @vanderZwan Because I know nothing about this and it’s the hammer I have. My mind goes to graphing the curve to try to spot the simple equations. Can it be explained by a the queen requiring some constant number of workers to stay inside while the rest are following some probability of likelihood of leaving?Now I want to go and simulate and ants nest to wildly speculate for no good reason!
(DIR) Post #AkcegYqfD0PRAOr5jk by libroraptor@mastodon.nz
2024-08-03T21:20:19Z
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@clew @futurebird @vanderZwan Concentration of the pheremones that they leave around to communicate? Because the concentration depends on the number of individuals leaving the trace. Perhaps also diversity, if there's slight difference between what individuals secrete.
(DIR) Post #AkcegZf0BqfvgWPICO by vanderZwan@vis.social
2024-08-04T11:49:05Z
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@libroraptor @clew @futurebird pheromones in graffiti, now there's a concept