Anthropology

Today, I came across this picture:

This is Figure 1 from a massive manuscript on Cephalotes by de Andrade and Baroni Urbani (1999). It includes the following caption:

Aerial view of one of the lines of Nasca (Peru) representing abstract animal contours (left) and the contour of a worker of Cephalotes atratus (LINNAEUS) drawn in the same style (right). The Nasca design was interpreted as a spider, essentially because it has four pairs of legs. We contend that the Nasca design might refer to a cephalotine ant as well. The reasons for this claim are twofold: (1) cephalotines are much more common and impressive than spiders, and, (2) the Nasca design bears a typical insect character contradicting the spider interpretation, namely the separation between head and thorax. This latter character is considered as being of easier observation than the number of appendages.

I find this interpretation to be quite compelling. At the very least, it’s entertaining to think that the pre-Columbian Nazca people appreciated turtle ants so much that they incorporated them into such fascinating artwork. We really shouldn’t be surprised if this is this case – turtle ants are famous for their well-documented behavior of using their heads to block the nest entrances, and several species have highly specialized soldiers so dedicated to this form of defense that their heads are basically just saucers:

(Image: Alex Wild)

(Image: Alex Wild)

Although the true inspiration for these Nazca lines may never be known for certain, I’m adding this to the pile of evidence that clearly shows that cultures around the world hold a timeless appreciation for ants.

 

Citation

De Andrade, M. L. and Baroni Urbani, C. Diversity and adaptation in the ant genus Cephalotes, past and present. Stuttg. Beitr. Naturk. Ser. B (Geol. Paläontol.) 271:1-889.

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On July 17th, 2015…

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When Ants and Physics Collide: Traffic Jams

It has been about 8 months since my last post, and since then I have returned from China and begun my Ph.D. program in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago. More information on this work is here.

To start off the resumption of my blogging, I leave you with today’s NPR story on ants and how they prevent traffic jams: here.

(iStockphoto image from the NPR piece)

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Abe’s Ant

I’ve already mentioned two brilliant men this week who have considered ants in some way. I will now add Abraham Lincoln to this list. In a fragment of a speech given somewhere around 1854, Mr. Honest Abe looked to the ant as a poignant metaphor:

… Made so plain by our good Father in Heaven, that all feel and understand it, even down to brutes and creeping insects. The ant, who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest, will furiously defend the fruit of his labor, against whatever robber assails him. So plain, that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master, does constantly know that he is wronged. So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.

I’m not sure what it is about ants that inspires people. Oh wait, yeah I do. It’s because they’re ants. From writers (here, here, and here) to civil rights activists (here and here) to the founder of Sikhism to saints to Laozi to journalists to philosophers to veterinarians to countless others, ants seem to carry a universal appeal for anyone who stops to consider the human condition. So, have you thought about ants recently? If not, I guess you don’t care about mankind.

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Ants Go Marching Win by Win

I’ve covered Fort Wayne’s NBA D-League team, the Mad Ants, a couple times before. Well, per my presciant prediction in my first post on the Ants, they are “irrefutably the team to beat” at this year’s playoffs, as reported in the surely unbiased Fort Wayne-based The Journal Gazette. I look forward to their ultimate success.

 

 

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ANT Surveillance

Turns out that even ants are being swept up by the NSA. Well, at least their name.

According to a Der Spiegel article from the end of last year, the NSA created an “ANT catalog” that apparently allows NSA employees to “order technologies from the ANT division for tapping their targets’ data”. However, these revelations seem to come from an “impression gained from flipping through the 50-page document”, with even the meaning of the acronym only “presumably” standing for “Advanced or Access Network Technology”.

Regardless of the true name and nature of the division, the most appalling fact from this report is the NSA’s practice of tapping into the wonderful world of ants for its secretive ends. However, it should be noted that the NSA chose to name seemingly omnipotent hacking powers “ANT”. Not “FLY”, or “GRASSHOPPER”, or “BEETLE”, but “ANT”. So, although appalling, it is at least encouraging that the NSA understands a bit about the true nature of the ant.

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More on the Space Ants

See here for a nice video from NASA on the space ants I mentioned a few days ago, as well as other information on the launch’s purpose. The article proposes the name “ant-ronauts”, but I’m partial to “antstronauts”. I think it flows better.

Image from the article.

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Mad Ants, China, and Detroit

Since learning about the Fort Wayne ‘Mad Ants’ NBA D-League team last year, I occasionally check in on the team, and it seems to be doing well. Last season, Tony Mitchell was the D-League Rookie of the Year (Are we surprised he was a Mad Ant? No.), part of an effort that brought the Mad Ants to the playoffs for the first time. Well, he then decided to do something different. Which, according to this article in The Journal Gazette, turned out to be going to China for 2 1/2 months to play with the Jilin Northeast Tigers. He also has been drafted by the Detroit Pistons, and, according to Wikipedia, is playing with the Mad Ants “on assignment” from the team.

I find this particularly notable because Mitchell’s trajectory has been Detroit -> Ants -> China, which essentially mirrors my own. Perhaps there is some fundamental property of nature that follows: (Detroit metro area) + (Ants) = (China).

 +  =  

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Ants on the ISS

The most important story of the year has already occurred! It has nothing to do with the NSA, or the midterm elections, or anything else so mundane. It has everything to do with ants. Specifically, space ants.

Outer space, already home to the Ant Nebula, will now be joined by real live ants, thanks to the recent launch of a rocket to the ISS carrying “swarms of ants”. According to the ABC article reporting the event, NASA hopes that the experiment will “help cultivate ‘a better understanding of swarm intelligence,’ which could lead to more refined mathematical procedures for solving complex problems, such as routing trucks and scheduling airlines, back on Earth.”

These are not the first space ants, but I believe they are the first to actually live on the ISS. The earlier launch used harvester ants, but this launch decided on Tetramorium caespitum, the pavement ant, according to the NASA release describing the experiment. I hope the ants love their stellar new home!

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Hibernants

The long, long, long list of useful ant applications to human life may soon grow even longer. A recent study reported in Scientific American reveals that a certain species of ant, Camponotus sanctus, may be the secret to hibernation at room temperature. The greater mouse tailed bat (Rhinopoma microphyllum) shifts to almost exclusively eating the fatty queens of this ant species when they emerge for the nuptial flight, the mating event between males and queens. This targeted consumption by the bat precedes a five-month hibernation in caves at room temperature, during which they neither eat nor drink. The timing indicates that something about the fat in these ants may enable this relatively novel behavior.

The article ends on this note:

We used to think about hibernation as something related to freezing temperatures, but mouse tailed bats definitely change this perception: hibernation is possible at room temperature and it is probably also related to diet composition.  Induction of hibernation in humans is still impossible and would be very important for long journeys into space and to “freeze” people suffering from still incurable diseases. The ability of the mouse tailed bat to hibernate at room temperature makes it a great model organism to understand hibernation and perhaps one day apply it to humans.

In other words, the likely key to this hibernation secret – ants – may make time travel and deep space flight possible. If this comes to fruition, we all know where the first destination would be: The Ant Nebula.

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