Slave rebellion is widespread in ants

Above: A slavemaker pupa is killed by enslaved host workers of the species T. longispinosus.




No, this is not a thread about captive cell-phone factory workers going postal. It seems real ants actually engage in real rebellion:

Ants that are held as slaves in nests of other ant species damage their oppressors through acts of sabotage. Ant researcher Professor Dr. Susanne Foitzik of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) first observed this "slave rebellion" phenomenon in 2009. According to the latest findings, however, this behavior now appears to be a widespread characteristic that is not limited to isolated occurrences. In fact, in three different populations in the U.S. states of West Virginia, New York, and Ohio, enslaved Temnothorax longispinosus workers have been observed to neglect and kill the offspring of their Protomognathus americanus slavemakers rather than care for them. As a result, an average of only 45% of the parasite's offspring survived. This presumably reduces the strength of the parasites in the area and thereby increases the chances of survival for the neighboring colonies populated by the slave ants' relatives.

Source: Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

The social behavior of ants, a species that seems to have a very tiny brain, remains astounding. Phenomena such as "slavery" itsef, never mind "slave revolts," would seem on the face of it to be something limited to humans. But ants and other insects prove time and time again that complex "social" behavior is more primal than it might appear at first glance.

This story tells us about fascinating things in and of themselves about ants, but one might also wonder if ant behavior could hold lessons about human society...

crazy to think, but it seems anger towards oppression of natural freedom is kind of a genetic trait!

I love ants.

LOL Take that ant Oppressors! Your time is up!

It's an Ant Spring rebellion!

Soon enough the world will be rid of these ant dictators!

My friends, we must help our ant brethren by sending troops into their captives colonies and freeing these prisoners of war!

The Queen fakes her death and is carried back by other ants to their colony she then awakens and kills their Queen and takes over the colony....


Man this is some interesting stuff, like a scifi movie haha.

So would it mean that slavery and rebellion is a natural phenomenon,maybe its in built into nature,maybe its in built to the human race and there is nothing we can do about it,maybe the slave trade was always unavoidable,maybe its sort of programed into us to rise against our oppressors.

Nobody expects the ant revolution...

Hey, a few ambitious ants....

leads to a restructured society....

and possibly a whole new species?

Behavior has been viewed as a pacemaker of evolutionary change because changes in behavior are thought to expose organisms to novel selection pressures and result in rapid evolution of morphological, life history and physiological traits

www.u.arizona.edu...

reply to post by silent thunder




so first we have fungal Zombie ants..

and now Johnny Rebel slave master ants?

/mind blown

How long before the rebel ants figure out that the REAL problem with things is HUMANITY?

WHAT THEN???

reply to post by KarensHoliday

This is so fascinating. As a child I loved to study ants and I dearly wish I had followed my heart and studied to become an entomologist instead of letting my parents push me kicking and screaming into majoring in business despite the fact I was paying for my education, not them. Ahh well, my fault for not being as strong willed and resourceful as a slave ant, the little buggers put me to shame.

They have such complex lives even as individuals, and I have seen individual specimens show remarkable problem solving abilities that far exceed what one would expect of something with such a tiny brain. They build cities, conduct complex warfare, enslave each other and other kinds of insects, and even farm livestock bugs (aphids) and vegetables (fungus).

And right now, they even have an Occupy movement going on in my kitchen cupboard.

Edit to add...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.

FOR THE COLONY AND OPRESSED ANTS EVERYWHERE!

Originally posted by POPtheKlEEN89
crazy to think, but it seems anger towards oppression of natural freedom is kind of a genetic trait!

I love ants.

Genetic or Creator Creations trait within all creations??? Good point, I love them too they are some interesting creatures to study.

reply to post by silent thunder


Wow, that is fascinating. How do the ants get enslaved? I wonder how the first observation occurred. Very interesting! Thanks for the link. I would love to read the actual academic paper. S+F

reply to post by kisharninmah


op

Ants that are held as slaves in nests of other ant species damage their oppressors through acts of sabotage.

I think they are attacking the foreign leader ant for some reason and the slave rebellion was added to describe their activities. They are however smart not to mention some grey I remember reading are supposedly made of plant and ant material to survive in space and process energy from stars as do plants.

reply to post by silent thunder



Its called "Natural Law" for a reason.

Thanks for the reminder.

So perhaps "A Bug's Life" really WAS based on a true story...

Ants are awesome.

I spent hours as a kid just watching them do their thing. Still to this day I'll stop and watch a documentary on Ants. Every summer or so it seemed at my last home there would be a colony fight between two rival colonies. We would have a 2' wide mass of ants fighting in the middle of the walkway.

Couldn't they all just get along?


S & F

enslaved Temnothorax longispinosus workers have been observed to neglect and kill the offspring of their Protomognathus americanus slavemakers

Oh the irony...

Great topic! S&F

I have always thought of Ants as the "People" of the Insect World.

Cities - Farming - Herding ... Slavery?!!? Amazing!

I recall reading (Somewhere/Sometime) that Ants will only war with Ants of a different color. (Red/Black)

Is this true? There is so much mis-information out there I sometimes do not know what to take seriously.

If true do Ants also possess in inherent bigotry?

Serious replies to a serious inquiry please.