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April 1, 2009
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Boing Boing (Ant slaves' murderous rebellions) tips me off to a new paper, FIRST EVIDENCE FOR SLAVE REBELLION: ENSLAVED ANT WORKERS SYSTEMATICALLY KILL THE BROOD OF THEIR SOCIAL PARASITE PROTOMOGNATHUS AMERICANUS.. It seems that Protomognathus Americanus is a species where "Slave-making ant queens invade host colonies and kill or eject all adult host ants. Host workers, which eclose [The emergence of an adult insect from a pupal case or an insect larva from an egg.] from the remaining brood, are tricked into caring for the parasite brood". But in a phenomena not yet documented in other ant species like this, from time to time the victimized acts have a coping strategy after the attack. Instead of normally and dutifully following the pheromone directions of their captors, from time to time there is a "rebellion of enslaved Temnothorax workers, which kill two-thirds of the female pupae of the slave-making ant Protomognathus americanus. Thereby, slaves decrease the long-term parasite impact on surrounding related host colonies. This novel antiparasite strategy of enslaved workers constitutes a new level in the coevolutionary battle after host colony defense has failed. Our discovery is analogous to recent findings in hosts of avian brood parasites where perfect mimicry of parasite eggs leads to the evolution of chick recognition as a second line of defense."
How astonishing. Creation a more diverse place than I imagined. Slavery is an anthropomorphic idea to describe this, but seems an accurate analogy because of the rebellion aspect. I knew ants use aphids like cows to produce foods that they cannot. I thought this was good for both species, and maybe it is. But this too seems harsher than I had imagined. It seems ants clip aphid wings to control adults and produce chemicals to keep them from growing in the young in the first place. Maybe that's analogous to chaining up the family dog or maybe that's like chaining up the family slave. I'm not sure.
Posted by OneEyedMan at April 1, 2009 7:05 AM
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