- A fierce species of Amazonian ant has been seen building
elaborate traps on which hapless prey are stretched like medieval torture
victims, before being slowly hacked to pieces.
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- With cunning and patience, Allomerus decemarticulatus
worker-ants cut hairs from the stem of the plant they inhabit, and use
the tiny fibres to build a spongy snare, Nature magazine reports.
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- This ingenious feat of engineering has only ever been
observed in one other species of related ant, French researchers say.
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- What the ants do is cut hairs to clear a path under the
plant stem, while leaving some hairs standing to form "pillars"
on top of which the lethal platform will sit.
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- Using the plant hairs they have harvested, the ants weave
the platform itself, which is bound together and strengthened using a special
fungus.
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- When the ants have completed the chamber they puncture
holes all along its surface, each just big enough to poke their heads through.
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- Then, hundreds of worker ants climb into the chamber
and wait for an unfortunate victim.
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- Ancient sacrifice
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- "Workers will hide inside the platform, with their
mandibles just inside the hole and they will wait there for prey to come,"
co-author Jerome Orivel of the University of Toulouse, France said.
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- Anything with legs slim enough to fit through the carefully
constructed holes will meet a miserable fate if they are foolish enough
to enter the trap.
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- "They will catch almost anything that goes on the
trap," continued Dr Orivel. "And they will grab anything they
can - legs, antenna, anything."
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- Once the prey is well secured by jaws fastening all its
extremities, it is stretched over the platform like an ancient sacrifice
to the gods.
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- Scores of worker ants then stream out from inside the
trap and sting it vigorously to cause paralysis.
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- Once the creature is dead or fully immobilised, the ants
will carry it to their nest, where they will dismember their prey before
carrying it inside.
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- "Small insects will be immediately dismembered and
transported to the nest," said Dr Orivel. "But bigger insects
will stay on the trap for up to 12 hours."
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- There is no limit to the ants' ambition and they will
attempt to catch any mammoth of the insect world - so long as it has slender
legs.
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- "Their success depends on the type of insect,"
Dr Orivel told the BBC News website. "The insects' legs have to be
smaller than the holes otherwise they cannot get hold of them.
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- "The ants must have something to catch - for example,
caterpillars will have nothing to get hold of so they will not be preyed
upon."
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- © BBC MMV
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4472521.stm
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