Post ArMCGWBwASVpdbQot6 by futurebird@sauropods.win
(DIR) More posts by futurebird@sauropods.win
(DIR) Post #ArLtJEjncQhzFGqx3Q by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T18:52:44Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
“Despite their excellent vision, worker ants of this genus find it difficult to find their nests at night, due to the difficulty of finding the landmarks they use to navigate. They are thus more likely to return to their nests the following morning, walking slowly with long pauses.”I choose to interpret this as bull ants who stay out to late having a good time end up having to do “the walk of shame” like a college student.
(DIR) Post #ArLtnJNytyPGLfzMTQ by Em@lsbt.me
2025-02-21T18:57:52Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird what is your favourite mind-blowing ant fact?
(DIR) Post #ArLun5nbW6caAFQu9I by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T19:09:21Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@Em Honestly the one that got me interested in ants in the first place: that some queens live for up to thirty years- A colony may be very old! It made me wonder what the colony *learns* and encodes in their macro-structure over such time spans. After all, the shape of a nest, their trails and farms, the composition of worker types, the memories and experiences of every ant in a colony of tens of thousands stores information. As do human cities… but I’m getting ahead of myself again.
(DIR) Post #ArLv34hrLZrRPPMoHQ by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T19:12:14Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@Em The “evolutionary unit” of ants is both the individual and the colony so both have patterns worth studying— you can really know a species of ant until you see how they move and interact— how the simple choices and tendencies of individuals create these far more complex macro patterns— and if a queen can live for decades that is a lot of time to build such complexity.
(DIR) Post #ArLvgZBbxQDbEa78WO by caramelyoghurt@troet.cafe
2025-02-21T19:19:20Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird This was really helpful. Thank You. ♥️
(DIR) Post #ArLzCGm8FC73GM0Nnc by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T19:58:40Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@patrickhadfield @Em Here is a good lit summary of the wild ride that is ant sex. Basically, if you only mate once but then need to have hundreds of thousands of kids for decades things get a little wild. https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/images/9/94/Baer%2C_B._2011._The_copulation_biology_of_ants.pdf
(DIR) Post #ArLzluba9Koivc4ABE by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T20:05:09Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@patrickhadfield @Em Also, in many animals we think of mate selection and generations as discrete. The fitness of the eggs a frog lays doesn’t have an impact on if the frog will be successful— for social species fit offspring determine if the colony will ever make it long enough to produce sexual offspring at all. Your kids determine if you even reach sexual maturity (sounds like a paradox almost) So, there are pressures that work on multiple generations.
(DIR) Post #ArM0UJUgyU5erT129Y by whknott@mastodon.social
2025-02-21T20:13:04Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@futurebird Social insects are SO WEIRD!!! Are they a single animal, or are they individuals? Both? Neither? Where does the generational divide really happen? Is it between Queen and alete or worker and alete?If ever I think does my life really have to be like this, all I have to do is look at ants or bees and be like, nope, not at all.
(DIR) Post #ArM0dTfeVULx1wVo5w by doomsdayrs@cyberpunk.lol
2025-02-21T20:14:47Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@futurebird A novel I was reading had this as a plot point.The ant could either mutate their eyes to enable better 270° focus, or improve 30° focus.(The ant chose 270° because why would they want to turn around to look at something)
(DIR) Post #ArM2qgPUeZ8cDJNWTY by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T20:39:37Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@doomsdayrs I know exactly what you are reading. A book based on an RPG has no right to be so good. The whole series is fire.
(DIR) Post #ArM9aBWwOaVdUGwTK4 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T21:55:05Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@patrickhadfield @Em Well thinking about ant evolution is one heck of dive into the deep end! (but IMO all the best questions lurk with the ants and maybe also the #lichen ) #ants #evolution
(DIR) Post #ArMABsfEzIkjylnbDU by BashStKid@mastodon.online
2025-02-21T22:01:52Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird @Em Would you recommend some reading on this, at say an undergrad zoology level?
(DIR) Post #ArMCGWBwASVpdbQot6 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T22:25:09Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@BashStKid @Em This paper was readable IMO. I'm not an ant PhD or anything. Just a fan.https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/images/9/94/Baer%2C_B._2011._The_copulation_biology_of_ants.pdf
(DIR) Post #ArME2YJbfuA04vUGyO by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T22:45:02Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I'm really curious if anyone who lives in Australia has seen lone bull ants stumbling back home in the dawn. Navigating by landmarks is a pretty big cognitive achievement for a little ant, and so if you see a bull ant going home like this she's doing her best!#australia #BullAnts #myrmecia
(DIR) Post #ArMERaYqSiWMHcYMCG by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T22:49:34Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
This isn't helping the stereotype about bull ants living like a slightly overly rowdy (murderous) sorority...I have tried to defend them from such aspersions, but this whole "stumble home at dawn..." IDK girls...
(DIR) Post #ArMEcXLWksJlUwXoCu by grumpasaurus@infosec.exchange
2025-02-21T22:51:29Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird you speak as if murderous sororities are a thing
(DIR) Post #ArMEglk3AtbrIs25o0 by jgflorez@aus.social
2025-02-21T22:52:15Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird I’ve lived in Australia for 16 years and have never seen a bull ant. Australia is almost the size of the US so to find people that encounter bull ants regularly you might have to narrow down the geographical location a bit
(DIR) Post #ArMEyl34UUL2MkVWkq by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T22:55:34Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@jgflorez They are fairly wide spread. This is a whole genus of ants. Not a species.
(DIR) Post #ArMF3CNonrKmIjKTlw by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T22:56:22Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
"Initially we thought they might be going and drinking some sap which makes them really high but I don't think they are actually getting drunk."https://www.antwiki.org/wiki/images/9/94/Baer%2C_B._2011._The_copulation_biology_of_ants.pdf
(DIR) Post #ArMGS6lAwnTO3RhDDk by kate@aus.social
2025-02-21T23:12:01Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird I’m not yet confident that I can distinguish bull ant from yikes that’s a big ant. But I do certainly come across solo YTAB ants in the morning more often than later in the day. Coastal east coast Australia, just south of Sydney.
(DIR) Post #ArMGZa66GmJj4Q2xcG by doomsdayrs@cyberpunk.lol
2025-02-21T23:13:23Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird Are we both thinking of Chrysalis?
(DIR) Post #ArMGaTbBusrpCm14DI by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T23:13:26Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@kate They are indeed big. And they can sting. So, do be considerate of their personal space. But, they can also be fun to interact with. If you have a dead cricket you might make a little friend.
(DIR) Post #ArMGbSJECHk9Uj55BQ by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T23:13:47Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@doomsdayrs YUP
(DIR) Post #ArMGt4XVJM0gzE9u2i by doomsdayrs@cyberpunk.lol
2025-02-21T23:16:55Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird BWHEHEHEHEHEH✨
(DIR) Post #ArMH29lpEQzTogBn1s by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-21T23:18:35Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@doomsdayrs I started reading it with an attitude like "this is supposed to be about ants I bet they get all the facts WRONG."But I was wrong. All of the ant facts are basically excellent ... it's almost educational.
(DIR) Post #ArMHEZLXxxUUc9ofyK by kate@aus.social
2025-02-21T23:20:46Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird I was bitten by a YTAB ant while camping and the pain was formidable. So I have a healthy regard for their personal space, which might even have manifested as jumping in the air with an anticipatory yelp when running into one in a bush trail!
(DIR) Post #ArMHG5YZh9lUnmdPKS by doomsdayrs@cyberpunk.lol
2025-02-21T23:21:05Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird excellANT!✨
(DIR) Post #ArMJS1bUPxrnvQojyK by Jirikiha@mastodon.cloud
2025-02-21T23:45:38Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@futurebird @Em you just taught me something new! I thought ants, including queens, only lived a handful of years.
(DIR) Post #ArMR0mKhswAUNXUDGi by BrettCoulstock@adforward.org
2025-02-22T01:10:15Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@futurebird I have seen plenty of bull-ants, and have the usual aversion of someone who has been stung by a couple. I encounter them regularly on walking tracks and make a point of giving them a wide birth (those things make belligerent eye contact, as if to say 'you think you're tough? Do you? Huh? Do you?')I've never seen one stumbling back at dawn.But then, I'm seldom awake that early.
(DIR) Post #ArMRCBQUvdt5OEdJx2 by futurebird@sauropods.win
2025-02-22T01:12:27Z
0 likes, 0 repeats
@BrettCoulstock I can't help but admire the sheer audacity of looking at a literal titan a hundred thousand times your size and saying "What you GOT?"I think they mostly do that when near their nest, though, or that's what I've been told. I hope I get to meet one in the wild some day.
(DIR) Post #ArMpUSm9YqJrJI0mqe by AbramKedge@beige.party
2025-02-22T05:44:36Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
@futurebird @Em back in the 90s there was a lot of interest in generating complex structures and behaviors from the simplest possible rules programmed into simulated ants. Most of my experiments have gone, lost on long-abandoned hard drives, but it was a lot of fun, and very instructive. I gave one group a whole bunch of phobias, and they ended up assembling themselves into four-layer pyramids.This is a different type of experiment in the same vein, where a few different strains of "ants" follow instructions encoded into "DNA". The ants with the highest energy levels breed and create offspring with merged DNA. Usually they all die out, but sometimes after a series of population crashes a stable colony is established with a dominant ant species.https://github.com/geekbrit/ignatiusThe code is a 2012 rewrite in Python of my 1995 original, but might inspire new experiments.