Convergent Evolutionary Behaviours - Shepherding (Black Ants Milking their version of Cows) INCREDIBLE FOOTAGE)

outerground (63) in nature • 7 years ago (edited)

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In this short macro film we see a Lasius niger (Black ant) worker attending to aphid who colonise a plant to suck the sap. The ants provide protection for the colony of aphid and in return give their sugary excreta on demand from a simple tap of the antennae on the Aphid's behind. You will see in this video a worker ant, in effect milking the aphids for food in a similar way we humans look after a dairy herd of cattle, sheep, goats. An example of convergent evolutionary behaviour across species suggests that this symbiotic relationship is a common feature of nature.

As part of my recent series of posts about convergent evolution and imaginary chymeric creatures, the motivation for this post is my guess that these types of symbiotic relationships would be repeated in other ecosystems, perhaps on other planets too, in a similar way by other pairs of related species, whatever they may be or how they might manifest. Mammals-mammals in our case. Insect-insect in this one. Who knows what on Kepler 452b ?

Location - Hackney East London - Panasonic Lumix Gf2 with a manual Tamron SP 300mm macro lens with micro 4/3rds adapter

nature photography ants farming macro

7 years ago by outerground (63)

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minnowpond (62) · 7 years ago

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immarojas (68) · 7 years ago (edited)

Interesting..how about the bees? I can hear the background :)

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outerground (63) · 7 years ago

thanks @immarojas. Yes I love the bees & the hardworking honeybees. They go in for more of a vegetable based agriculture but being closely related to ants they are also incredible. I have kept black ant colonies and studied them intently. I found out that they make tools but that's a whole different post ! (which I made already.)

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immarojas (68) · 7 years ago

What do u feed them?

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outerground (63) · 7 years ago

ants like sugar, so at one end of the formicarium (ant nest) there is a test tube filled with cotton wool and soaked in a sugary solution. they drink that but they also need protein so dead insects from the terrace. anything will do. I fed them with flies and one day I noticed the ant cutting a leg off the fly and it took ages. She had cut one of the legs off in a very precise way halfway up the thigh so it was exactly the same length as the foreleg (leaving the jointed foot attached) and then I later noticed they were storing it in the nest. (ants don't keep food inside the nest) so I was intrigued. I watched and found the leg being used a tunneling brace for digging new tunnels and a ladder. ASTOUNDING>> ants make and use tools. It would often be found in one place in the nest and then in another and then back in one of the chambers, kept safe like a good tool should be

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immarojas (68) · 7 years ago

That's amazing!! Thank u.

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outerground (63) · 7 years ago

my pleasure @immarojas. That's a true story and one day will be a fact, well known to science. My experimental observations were made and published in 2005

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immarojas (68) · 7 years ago

Oh wow..congratulations with that. Sounds cool mate!

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outerground (63) · 7 years ago

I will post the full write up on steemit !

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minnowpond1 (48) · 7 years ago

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minnowsupport (70) · 7 years ago

Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by outerground from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.

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minnowpond (62) · 7 years ago

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splash-of-angs63 (49) · 7 years ago

Wind was blowing? May be!
Ah my stress is now gone :p

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outerground (63) · 7 years ago

it's very relaxing watching someone else work ! :)

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