Plus, Oysters, Snails and a Wall That Protects Against Climate Change –1 Tile at a Time
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| Hi Deep Look and KQED Science Fans, Summer is in full swing, and with the warm season come ants marching into your kitchen in search of shelter. We don’t often think of ants beyond the fact that they’re a nuisance. But in their quest to survive, they display some amazing behaviors. Kidnapper ants in California’s Sierra Nevada steal other ants’ pupae. I witnessed one of these raids last week, while I was hiking above Lake Tahoe – dozens of small reddish-brown ants ran across the trail, each one carrying a white pupa. In this week’s special video you’ll get to see their pointy mandibles in exquisite detail. The three other ant species in our video are each ruthless in their own way. Fire ants use their colony’s larvae as flotation devices. Honeypot ants turn their biggest workers into liquid storage tanks to survive the parched desert. And Argentine ants work as bodyguards in exchange for food. We hope you enjoy our newsletter and special video. | |
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The 4 Most Ruthless Ants We’ve Ever Filmed | |
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| Fire ants have a flood emergency plan: They build a life raft using the colony’s own babies as floaties! See how they assemble into a getaway barge and learn about the survival tactics of three other types of ants. | |
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Our Latest Science Stories | |
| | Biological sciences technician Jeffrey Blumenthal inspects specially designed tiles, which are part of an innovative study led by the Port of San Francisco and Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, to learn how we can make San Francisco's seawalls more ecologically friendly in the future. |
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| 🐜To escape a deluge, red fire ants can assemble a raft out of their own bodies, putting their larvae and pupae at the bottom like floaties. The hairs on the larvae trap air bubbles that help keep the raft afloat! 🐜Kidnapper ants steal developing young from other species and trick them into doing all the work for their captors, including finding dinner. 🐜Honeypot ants turn their colony’s biggest newborn sisters into golden jugs full of nectar called repletes. The repletes hang in their nest like chandeliers, ready to provide nourishment for the rest of the colony. 🐜Argentine ants work as bodyguards, protecting orange grove pests like citrus psyllids from other insects that would like to eat them. In exchange, the ants get to feed on the psyllids’ sweet poop. | |
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| These ants don’t eat leaves. They use them to grow white tufts of nutritious fungus to feed their offspring. Their success as farmers has made them into fungus tycoons, complete with their own underground cities and huge half-inch soldiers to patrol them. What’s the name of these ants? Find out at the bottom of the newsletter. | |
| | (L-R) Researcher Mike Lewis of UC Riverside places an ant sensor on orange grove irrigation lines while Josh Cassidy, Deep Look’s lead producer and cinematographer, gets ready to film Argentine ants. |
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| Support Deep Look so we can keep making more incredible tiny wildlife videos for you! We and KQED need your support now more than ever, especially due to the recent government funding cuts to public media. | |
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| We hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter. Thank you for subscribing! KQED’s Deep Look and Science teams! | |
| Answer to 'Name that Critter' |
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