Slave rebellion is widespread in ants

reply to post by silent thunder


Insects on earth are instinctive, over many generations the instinctive knowledge can be great

ants communicate in many ways, chemical, touch, sound, who knows what else

anything that oppresses another will be a victim (sooner or later) to the oppressed even if chemicals are used to subdue the oppressed

i like to watch ants, i like how they leave chemical sign posts/trails to show other ants where stuff/food is
how they work as one
and i wonder about things like if they cant sense my big foot right next to them what big things dont humans sense

it was a bankster ant so the ants pre-empted

reply to post by silent thunder


why would you let rebellious slaves eat your children ?
the ant world must be populated with many dr. evils ....

and should we begin a search for a bunch of small pyramids ?

reply to post by silent thunder

Thank you for that very interesting information.

What we have here is an evolutionary arms race (yes, that's the technical term). Hosts always evolve defences against parasites; parasites, in turn, must evolve means to overcome those defences. It's turn and turn about, generation upon generation.

Rarely does one party in an arms race overcome the other – and if one dies out, the other often does, too. Obviously, if the host species dies out, the parasite, with its specialised adaptations, cannot survive. Less obviously, the extinction of the parasite species can lead to a Malthusian event in the host population – without the parasites to cull them, the hosts increase in numbers until they outgrow their food supplies and suffer a population crash, sometimes leading to their extinction.

In fact, there are some 'slave' species which would die out without their hosts, whose help they need to survive and reproduce. A famous example, also from the ant world, is that of aphids or 'plant lice'. Some species of ant actually 'farm' aphids, helping them reproduce by storing aphid eggs inside their nests during winter. Symbiosis is often no more than benign parasitism.

In the present case, the slave species has found a way to control the master species' population, but that is not the same thing as overthrowing the master species. The slavers will evolve new defences in response to the threat. As the authors of the study say in their original paper, 'The parasite P. americanus is now under strong selection to adapt its pupal recognition cues to those of its hosts to counteract slave rebellion.' (p.48)

Evolution among animals has resulted in just about every social arrangement human beings have ever invented, plus a good many more. We ought to be hesitant about drawing political, social or moral conclusions from them, because every example in nature has its counterexample.

Originally posted by radarloveguy
reply to post by silent thunder

 

why would you let rebellious slaves eat your children ?
the ant world must be populated with many dr. evils ....

and should we begin a search for a bunch of small pyramids ?

What do you think an ant hill is?

I find it interesting that the slavemakers are completely dependant on the slaves. What would they do if there were no slaves around??

I guess that's how any pyramid works though. The top cannot exist in such a capacity without everybody else holding them up 100% of the time. I guess in our case, slavery is kinda dying out in the more civilized nations as the transition to "voluntary-indentured-servitude-in-exchange-for-a-few-cheap-trinkets,-shiny-gadgets,-primitive technology,-and-if-you're-lucky-and-work-extra-hard-for-extra-long,-a-crappy-house-that-won't-last-a-century-and-your-kids-will-probably-sell-it-as- soon-as-you're-dead" takes hold.

reply to post by silent thunder


Trivia question: Who are the two most famous rebelling slave ants of all time?: Spanticus and Nant Turner

OP, very interesting post, Who would'a thunk it?

reply to post by MrInquisitive

You appear to have forgotten Danton.

Or the late medieval age peasant revolts.

reply to post by SheeplFlavoredAgain

I really enjoyed reading your post.

I just thought of something that has struck me time and time again in my interactions with ants. I have noticed that they structure a lot of their activity around the chemicals they exude outside their bodies. Not only do they communicate with one another via chemical trails, but they seem to encode messages for themselves to follow. Also it seems other ants add their own information by adding their own chemicals to the trails. I wonder if unlike us, some of their brain processing is supplemented by these external chemical reactions. We have all of our brain function and chemical interactions taking place internally. But for an ant, I wonder if the chemicals laying out undergo changes over time, that give the ant additional information and decision making functions that it picks up when it returns to the chemicals later.

You are, of course, absolutely right. It is chemical signals that tell individual ants what to do.

Ant behaviour often displays intelligence, but the intelligence does not reside in the individual ant. It is the colony as a whole that processes most of the information and sends out directives. The individual ants are its neurons, as well as its limbs, nerves and muscles.

However, individuals do have some data-processing ability – some species, for example, are able to count their own steps as an aid to navigation. But I'm not sure if having a pedometer in its head makes an ant intelligent.

Excellent. Now all these ants need is Lenin.

I think this is New!
and some thing Big is using some to make the people
of Earth rebel against the slave masters.

in the last few years Humans have started rioting and fighting back.
Who is doing this? the government?
or is it ! aliens! or a group of humans finally making the fight back?!?

Why? why are they doing this?
the government! to stat the take over??

It would have to be some thing big!
and world wide. maybe coming from satellites?
as it is effecting animals to?

reply to post by DaRAGE


Awesome reply. I needed a good laugh

"chemical signals" ?
some thing to do with chem trails.

me mad! yes.
but look at the world...
a LOT of people have been having revolutions.
some thing is Doing it!!!

It might be due to the fact, that the smell signature their surroundings carry does not match. However the situation also suggests ants are able to gauge their chances at winning a fight, biding their time and being able to surrender accept surrender and enslave.

It appears that except for man ants are the only species whom engage in organised warfare, with some specimen of a colony born and bred exclusively for warfare, such as suicide bombers.

I find this hypothesis fascinating and look forward to reading the full source. What about this hypothesis: The slave ants are weeding out the slavemaker pupa that lack the qualities of a good slavemaker? Perhaps they are killing the weeklings for a stronger colony rather than revolting against their overlords.

reply to post by silent thunder

When I was a little kid I once witnessed a real-life ANT WAR on the gaint rocky front "yard" of our cottage which was in the region of the Canadian Shield so it was all rock (with a large vain of quartz).

It (the war) was between the red ants and the black ants, and while the reds were smaller, they appeared to be winning, and were taking small egg pupa from the black ants home nest back to their own, presumably to raise as a slave workforce. Seeing this, I decided to intervene and spent a good hour or so slapping away at the red ants until the tide began to turn probably to the dismay of the previously losing blacks who seemed to take advantage of the red's setback (compliments of moi) and starting running the eggs back home. I'll never forget it.

Rebellion is inevitable.

There is no stopping it.

Are you suggesting something with this post?

Originally posted by Merinda
It might be due to the fact, that the smell signature their surroundings carry does not match. However the situation also suggests ants are able to gauge their chances at winning a fight, biding their time and being able to surrender accept surrender and enslave.

It appears that except for man ants are the only species whom engage in organised warfare, with some specimen of a colony born and bred exclusively for warfare, such as suicide bombers.

Amazing !
If ants are this much like humans,
then All Human traits are Nature, natural !?!? OMG!

I bet ants are not the only animal to do this?

reply to post by silent thunder


Apparently, ants have more sense than people...