 |
| Weaver ant gluing leaves |
The May issue of National Geographic had a fascinating article on weaver ants. Mark Moffett captures incredible images of their teamwork in weaving their colonial homes. These denizens of Southeast Asia and Australia have one of the most complex societies known.
Among their many skills they can:
- Create nests the size of soccer balls by stitching together leaves.
- Create a city of these nests, up to 100 which are linked socially by their own brand of communication.
- Hold and squeeze larva like a tube of glue to bind leaves together.
- Stretch over a third of an inch to pull leaves together before weaving them into a home.
- Attack intruders, including photographers by biting with a toxic substance and spraying formic acid to burn the nostrils.
The article describes the beginning of a construction project this way.
 |
| Pulling leaves together |
"A single worker stands on a leaf and reaches to grasp the edge of another leaf nearby. If the span is too great, a second worker climbs over the first, and the bottom ant grasps the newcomer by its wire-thin waist and holds it out closer to the goal. Still not enough? A third ant clambers over the first two and is lifted out farther yet. Ant by ant, a living chain grows into thin air like the arm of a construction crane. Once the distant leaf is grabbed, the squad pulls in unison, often with nest mates that have formed parallel chains and reinforcing cross-links, to draw the leaves' edges together. Workers begin to array themselves like live staples along the seam between the leaves, legs holding on to one edge, jaws gripping the other."
Read
this National Geographic.com website article for all the details.
