Giant Eels, Dracula Ants and other reasons never to leave the house again. (Part 2)

After last week’s blog I had some very scary nightmares. I may be miles from the coast and even further from the ocean floor where the sea monsters I wrote about lurk, but no distance is enough for me to feel safe. There are Giant Squids with eyes the size of beach balls swimming around somewhere – how on earth are you supposed to relax?!

I’ve slept more soundly since I decided never to dip my toe in the ocean again. But unfortunately, there is just as much to be scared of on land too. Especially for scaredy cats like me.

I Want to Suck Your Blood (And Other Things You Should Never Say to Your Children)

If you’ve read some of my earlier blogs you’ll know I am fascinated by ants. Those teeny tiny insects are much more interesting than we give them credit for. But even I have to admit that some of them aren’t that friendly. None more so than the Dracula Ants.

Being named after the world’s most famous blood sucking vampire can never be a good thing. But these ants, found in Madagascar, take it to new creepy levels. Worker Dracula Ants go out each day to catch prey, which they bring back for their larvae to feast on. That’s all pretty normal. But it’s the peculiar feeding habits of the queen and workers which makes these insects the stuff of nightmares.

The workers chew holes in the colonies larvae and suck out their blood (or haemolymph to be scientific). Yes, you read that right. They eat the blood of their children.

http://www.alexanderwild.com/Ants/Taxonomic-List-of-Ant-Genera/Adetomyrma/

 

Just before they develop into adults, the larvae are stuffed full of lovely, delicious haemolymph. And that’s when the worker ants get to feast.

And it just gets worse. After they’ve gorged themselves on their children’s haemolymph they regurgitate it up so they can feed it to the queen! And I thought being lactose intolerant and not being able to eat cheese was a bad enough diet. (Note: Not being able to eat cheese is one of the worst things to happen to a person. Never mind cannibalism).

https://myrmecos.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/dracula-ants-at-myrmecosnet/

This delightful act is called ‘non-destructive cannibalism’ – because it doesn’t kill their larvae. If you’re a young Dracula Ant having chunks chewed out of your side doesn’t kill you, it just leaves you a bit holey. Now that’s thoughtful parenting. Larvae that have fallen victim to this strange feeding technique do show some signs of puncture wounds and scarring across their bodies.

Although it can take an even worse turn if the colony is struggling for food. In these cases the starving workers will choose the most drained and scarred larvae and use them as an easy meal.

So just to summarise. Queen Dracula Ants feed off the blood of children. But only after worker ants have sicked it up first. I think we can all agree that their parenting skills leave a lot to be desired.

You’re Giving me a Right Headache

Don’t worry – ants don’t get away with such an appalling example of child care. They’ve got their own real-life horror film to contend with. It’s not just animals that are keeping me up at night. For ants, their living nightmare comes in the form of a parasitic fungus, called Cordyceps. You know the stomach scene in Alien? Well this is the HD 3D all singing all dancing version for the insects of this world. In fact, these fungi can wipe out whole colonies without much effort at all.

When the spores of the Cordyceps land on insects, such as ants, they attack them from the inside out – growing inside their non-vital organs to replace the ant’s own tissue. Eventually the fruiting body of the fungus erupts through the back of the ant’s neck. A thin fungal spike begins growing straight through the ant’s head. Eek.

By Bernard DUPONT via Wikimedia Commons

And some of these parasitic fungi get even more impressive. They brain wash the ants they infect too and change their behaviour. They alter the chemicals in the ant’s brain and cause them to climb upwards until they grip the tip of the plant. This has been coined the ‘death grip.’ (Sounds warm and fuzzy to me.) And there’s a very good reason for this. The higher the ant goes before the delightful fungus bursts out of its head, the higher up the fungus is. And this means it can spread its spores even further – infecting even more ants and starting the terrifying process all over again.

Erich G. Vallery, USDA Forest Service via Wikimedia Commons

Cordyceps are so devastating to ant colonies that once infected workers start showing signs of being brain washed, their nest mates will dump them far, far away from the nest. Talk about taking care of your own, never leave an ant behind etc etc… And it’s not just ants that need to protect themselves.  There are thousands of different types of Cordycep and each one is specialized to infect one species! There’s no denying that’s impressive.

By Michael Koltzenburg via Wikimedia Commons

I’m really sorry to say that apparently it’s not safe on dry land either. But I read a lot about animals and there’s one thing that crops up time and time again. ‘These animals are so successful they’ve colonised nearly all areas of the globe, except high altitudes.’ So I think that means there’s only one thing to do.

Run for the hills whilst you still can.

 

 

 

 

Giant Eels, Dracula Ants and other reasons never to leave the house again.

I think it’s probably clear by now but just in case I haven’t made it obvious (I definitely have) – I love the natural world.

And you should too, because it’s very, very interesting. Fish that sing, birds that tap dance and ants that make best friends with aphids… it’s all very lovely. Well at least that’s what everyone wants you to think.

I’m sorry to tell you that it’s not all the sunshine and rainbows and unicorns galloping into perfect sunsets that some people would have you believe. When you delve a little deeper the natural world is actually an extremely weird and terrifying place.

There are moths that poke birds in the eye until they cry, birds that drink the blood of their fellow feathery friends (I say friends, but that’s really no way to treat a pal) and plants that eat meat. And when you remember that in a completely baffling act of sadism, God created flying snakes and 6m long crocodiles, it’s a wonder we ever leave the safety of our homes.

And I’m afraid it doesn’t stop there. Apparently we must have done something to upset God during the creation, because where creepy animals are concerned, he really did out-do himself.

As it’s Halloween weekend, I thought I’d warn you about some of the real natural horrors that are lurking around the globe (that and if I’m writing my blog, I look too busy for my sister to force me to watch a scary film that will cause me to cry in my sleep and keep my feet firmly tucked inside the covers for the next 2 weeks).

What Lies Beneath

You’ll really, really wish I hadn’t told you.

I’ve read a lot about deep sea creatures recently. None of it good. And I’m 100% sure that I will never set foot in the ocean again. We only discovered these horrifying ecosystems quite recently and I really wish we’d just left them well alone. They are without a doubt the inspiration for all of the horror films you’ve ever seen and the reason you’re scared of the dark. And if they aren’t, they should be.

Gulper Eels

I cannot tell you enough how much I hate eels. I can only imagine their sole purpose to exist is to terrify anyone who decides to swim outside. In a very uncharacteristic moment of bravery, I once put on my bikini and jumped straight into a glacial lake in New Zealand – full to the brim with eels. Massive, massive eels. I didn’t hang around long. In fact, I climbed/sprinted/cried up the side of the jetty at a speed that can only be reached during sheer fear-fuelled panic. Speed that I’m 100% sure I’d never be able to recreate. I still shiver thinking about them. Little did I know that the eels I came face-to-face with were teddy bears compared to the Gulper Eels.

Source: Factzoo

Question: How do you make something already terrifying, reduce grown men to tears even more quickly?

The answers is, of course, make them man-size and give them an ENORMOUS mouth. And when I say enormous, I mean really enormous.

Lurking 3000m below the surface of the ocean, are Gulper Eels. Two metre long eels with mouths that make up a quarter of their body length. Think eel with a pelican’s mouth. This gigantic mouth is also loosely hinged so they can open it wide enough to swallow animals much larger than themselves (RUN!) They also have their own nifty little flashlight – the end of their tail is tipped with a photophore (a light-producing organ) which glows pink! These animals are found so deep below the surface that we know very little about them, but scientists think they use this light to lure prey towards them (you can’t exactly move quickly through water with an absolutely massive head.)

Don’t worry too much, despite its oversized mouth, we think they mainly eat small crustaceans – they have teeny tiny teeth which make chewing larger prey a bit tricky. So you’d probably be safe. If you ever happen to find yourself 3000m beneath the waves.

But, if you do venture that far (I wouldn’t recommend it. You’d die in a less than pleasant way), Gulper Eels will really be the least of your worries. Enter, the Giant Squid.

Source: National Geographic

When I was younger I thought these just existed in a very different and very terrifying Disney film that I can’t remember the name of and definitely never want to watch again. But I’m really sorry to tell you that these are in fact very much a reality. A really, really big one.

If I stood on the shoulders of my parents, my step parents, my brother and my sister and held my cat Holly up above my head like the opening scene of the Lion King, we’d still be shorter than a Giant Squid.

They can grow up to 13 metres long. (Coincidentally, 13m is also the depth of swimming pool you could fill with the tears I produced after googling images of them.)

Some people think they eat whales. WHALES?! I think that’s all I need to say.

Your Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great Grandad Is A Bit Scary

I often wonder why there are so many animals that look like eels and snakes. I can only presume that whoever created them isn’t actually a very nice person.

Source: NOAA, Flickr

But this next animal has made me realise that you can actually make that thin, slimy body even more terrifying by attaching a face that makes the stomach scene in Alien quite romantic. Also, known as the Hagfish. They really are gross. But what makes these creatures even worse is we have them to thank for our existence. Yes. That’s right. If these monsters hadn’t stuck around for 300 million years we might not actually be here.

They were among the first animals to evolve a backbone. So without them, backbones might not have actually evolved and you’d be pretty uncomfortable without yours.

So we should really thank these horrors. But I’m afraid I can’t even bring myself to look at one.

And guess what. Hagfish live in water too. So I think we’ve all learnt a very important lesson here. For the love of God, stay on dry land where it’s safe. Although, saying that, there’s other things to run from out of the ocean too. But I’ll talk about that next time.

For now, I’ll leave you with one last thing. Just google ‘Goblin Shark.’ And then throw your laptop/phone/computer out of the window, cancel your Wifi and stay 100 miles from the sea at all times so you never, ever have to look at one again.

Speedy Species: the titchy itchies

After reading my last two blogs my Grandad pointed out that when it comes to eating, travelling at racing car speed isn’t always the best option. He reminded me I recently spent 4 hours in A&E having my thumb stitched back together after rushing to open a tin of beans (a boring tin of butter beans at that! Proof that eating healthy isn’t always good for you.)

And it’s not just eating. When it comes to going about your daily business in general, it doesn’t always pay to rush about. Sometimes you need to fine-tune another skill to get what you want.

I thought I’d continue the animal athlete theme again, but this time I’m moving away from the Bolts of the animal kingdom. It’s time to worship another skill-set – the King and Queens of the high jump – the teeny tiny flea. Ironically, although not speedsters themselves, these little parasites have been making cat and dog owners move at lighting speeds for decades. Anyone with a pet will know, when you see that tiny full-stop-size blob suddenly spring upwards, it’s time for fight or flight – run quickly in the opposite direction or use an old newspaper for a make-shift insect terminator.

By Vannie (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

There is no denying these insects know how to win a high jump. In fact they can jump over 30cm high – that might not sound impressive but that’s 200 times their own height! Let’s just think about that for a moment. If I could jump 200 times my own height Big Ben wouldn’t even be a challenge for me and I’d glide straight over the Eiffel Tower with plenty of room to spare.

That’s not to say a flea could hurdle over these landmarks if it suddenly found itself 165cm tall though! These parasites are perfect little springs just the way they are – you start messing around with their size and special features and you’ll end up with a terrifyingly large creepy crawly whose high jump is even more pathetic than my Year 5 Sports Day effort.

In fact, fleas are only perfect at catapulting themselves into the air because of the intrinsic way they’re designed. For starters, their legs act as an impressive catapult mechanism. Their hind legs act as multi-jointed levers which they squeeze and release to fling themselves into the air. As good as this is, it’s difficult to jump with real power if you just use your legs so these little jumpers also have an internal spring-like structure just above their hind legs which they store energy in. When they jump they drive their toes into the ground and release this stored energy very quickly firing themselves into the air at around 4mph.

When it comes to their record-breaking leaps, being the size of a biscuit crumb has its advantages too. But when it comes to fleas, their dedication to the high jump isn’t the only reason they’re so tiny.

When I think about it, why don’t we see human-sized creepy crawlies pottering about the streets?! Look back 300 million years ago and giant insects did buzz around the planet – these were dragonflies with wingspans reaching nearly a metre in length! Whilst I can’t say I’m disappointed they’ve buzzed off it does start to make you wonder why we can no longer pop a saddle on a millipede! Luckily for me some very helpful scientists have researched just this. These scientists believe that insects were much larger due to a higher oxygen content in the earth’s atmosphere during this time.

By Step, Edward, via Wikimedia Commons

The basic fact is that fleas simply aren’t built to get much bigger. Insects (like the flea) don’t have the sophisticated respiratory and circulatory system that we have. When we breathe, gas exchange takes place in our lungs to move the oxygen from the air into our blood. It’s then down to our red blood cells to deliver this to all the nooks and crannies of our body. This ‘oxygenated’ blood allows us to function as we do. Insects don’t work this way – they don’t have oxygenated blood, a circulatory system or any sign of the lungs we’re used to. Instead they have a network of tubes called the tracheal system. The tracheal system is made up of trachea and smaller tracheoles that travel throughout the insect’s body delivering much needed oxygen to their cells. When it comes to getting this oxygen into this system of tubes in the first place, insects keep their mouths firmly closed. Instead they have openings in the side of their body called spiracles. The air starts its journey here before travelling down the tracheas to the very ends of the tracheoles where it diffuses into the cells.

There are limitations to having such a simple system and these can help explain why, for insects, small is best. Small species have a relatively large surface area and a relatively small volume. Just a small change in size would cause a big change in volume. If the flea got any bigger they’d need much more cells to function and all these cells would need to be oxygenated – and that would require a much longer tracheal system. If an insect gets too big, the amount of trachea and tracheoles needed to fill their cells with oxygen would take up just about all the room there is inside their body – meaning there’d be nowhere to put their blood, reproductive organs or guts. And they’re quite important!

Thankfully for the flea, these restrictions on their size have helped them win the gold medal in high jump. Put simply, they don’t have as much to shift. Think about it, have you ever seen an elephant jump? No one seems to have completely made up their mind as to why insects aren’t terrifying large but it does seem to come down to how their insides work. When you get bigger you need more specialised systems and insects just don’t have these. Whatever the reasons, there’s no denying their strategy works – insects are the most successful organisms on the planet! In fact they make up around half of the world’s species. They’re doing something right. So maybe they’re small because being small works for them? You know the saying, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’

Speedy Species – Is it a Bird? Is it a Plane?

I couldn’t bring myself to watch the closing ceremony. The Olympics took over my life so much for 2 weeks that I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. And the constant BBC montages began to tip me over the edge. Roll on the Paralympics so I can spend more time watching these superhuman athletes smash world records, whilst I sit on the sofa taking on my own record – most chocolate digestives eaten in five minutes.

In my last blog I started exploring some of nature’s own record holders, with probably the most famous animal athlete of them all – the cheetah. Their small frame, strong legs, specialised muscles and super bendy spine mean these mammals are built for speed. But their 70mph sprint looks measly compared to the Concorde of the animal kingdom…

Kevin Cole from Pacific Coast (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

The Peregrine Falcon

Generally, birds are built to be flying machines (which I’m sure isn’t news to you!) They have light, hollow bones, powerful chest muscles and that streamlined shape most speed athletes strive for (painful hair removal isn’t necessary for our feathered friends!) But there are many variations across different species and that’s where it gets interesting. Peregrine Falcons are designed to reach dizzying speeds. I’m sure you’ve all seen videos of these bird missiles shooting through the air as they perform their hunting stoop (if not, google it, you won’t be disappointed. Just make sure you don’t blink or you’ll miss it!)

The peregrine falcon normally flies at speeds of around 60mph but when it dives (or stoops) to attack it reaches 200mph! 200MPH?! How on earth doesn’t that bird pass out or, even worse, explode?!

Well thanks to the wonderful world of evolution, peregrine falcons are designed as intrinsically as jets (in fact– we’ve taken a lot of inspiration from the design of the falcon to manufacture planes!) Their slim feathers create the perfect streamlined silhouette when drawn against the body and attached to these are large flight muscles to help propel them through the air. The feathers also play an important part with video evidence showing small feathers popping up during the dive. Scientists believe these help reduce drag by keeping air flowing smoothly over the bird’s body – think about the flaps on the wings of an aeroplane.

By Aviceda (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Perfecting your appearance to rocket you through the sky is all well and good – but your organs need to be able to keep up. Their circulatory systems are incredibly strong, with large lungs and specialized air sacs to take in as much air as a possible and a strong heart which beats over 600 times per minutes! And their muscles are stuffed full of red muscle fibres so they can take in lots of oxygen, increasing their metabolic activity to give them the flight power they need.

The change in air pressure resulting from a plummet of a 200mph dive is so large that it could and should damage the bird’s lungs. But luckily someone along the evolutionary path has thought of that. Peregrine falcons have small cone-like bones on their nostrils which guides the airflow away, reducing the air pressure and allowing them to breathe more easily in flight. This design is so good that it’s now used in jet engines!

By Ltshears (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) via Wikimedia Commons

The thought of dropping through the sky this fast makes my eyes water. I’m sure anyone who’s ever skydived will tell you that it baffles your senses! Your eyes are dry but also streaming all at the same time and your cheeks wobble in a way you didn’t even know was possible (cue some great photo opportunities). So I’m really pleased to say these bird-shaped rockets have got that covered to. They have a third eyelid to spread their tears and clear debris as they dive – protecting their eyes as they keep them on the prize!

Their dive or stoop is so fast that it would actually be dangerous to grab their prey (normally other birds) out of the sky. So they’ve come up with a different tactic here too. They ‘punch’ their prey in the back of the head. Which is a much nicer way of describing what actually happens. In fact these birds use their terrifying talon to rip along the back of their targets neck, breaking their spine and causing them to tumble out of the sky. Lovely.

However awful an ending this is for the smaller birds that fall prey to these avian missiles, there’s no denying their strategy is a successful one – they’re found in every continent except Antarctica and around a fifth of the world’s bird species are on their shopping list. Impressive. But it’s not all about speed. There are other finely tuned athletes in the animal kingdom that have perfected other sporty skills. But more about that next time…

 

 

 

Speedy Species – Sprint for Gold

It’s been a while. 2 years and 2 months to be exact. And a lot has changed. I moved house, got a new job, visited 7 new countries and somehow won a trophy for pole dancing (2014 me would definitely have struggled to believe that one!)

But one thing has stayed the same. I still love the natural world and everything it has to offer (excluding snakes and jumping spiders – that hasn’t changed either!)

I started this blog because I wanted to spread this excitement. My sister has been telling me to write again continuously for 2 years. And I’ve finally had enough of my own excuses and downright laziness. The natural world out there is pretty bloomin’ impressive. And it’s about time I started appreciating that again!

SPEEDY SPECIES – SPRINT FOR GOLD!

There is something about watching the Olympics that makes me feel incredibly proud and determined. Unfortunately, there’s also nothing that makes me feel more pathetic as a human being than watching those incredible athletes whilst I’m under a duvet on the sofa.

I spend my time in swimming pools leisurely doing a couple of lengths before convincing myself I’ve earned 10 minutes in the sauna…whilst Michael Phelps has 23 gold medals weighing him down! And I feel quite proud about running a couple of miles before work in the morning…until I remember Mo Farah would have lapped me about 4 times and still be smiling when he finished. These athletes certainly motivate me to get moving. None more so than the super-human speedster that is Mr Usain Bolt. He sprinted straight into the spotlight in Beijing 8 years ago with 3 gold medals and 3 smashed world records. And after another powerful performance in Rio, he now holds the never-seen-before triple-triple (3 gold medals in 3 events in 3 consecutive Olympics) – and he spent less than 2 minutes actually running in these games!

There is no denying his brilliance. But unfortunately, I’ve got news for Bolt. He’s not the fastest animal on the planet. Not by a long way.

These games got me thinking about the world record holders in the natural world. They’ll come as no surprise to you, as they’ve earned their own fame and accolades over the years. But I thought it would be interesting to delve a little deeper into what makes these animals so brilliant at what they do. We’ll start with everyone’s favourite, furry speedster…

The Cheetah

Or the Ferrari of the animal kingdom. They can go from 0 to 60 mph in a couple of strides, reaching top speeds of up to 70mph in some cases. Even they’d make Usain Bolt look slow, with his top speed only reaching around 27mph in comparison.

Wegmann via Wiki Commons

 

Any animal that can power themselves to these speeds so quickly must have special adaptations. Like most things built for speed, the cheetah’s success starts with aerodynamics. It’s slight build, flattened rib cage, small head and long, strong legs make it the perfect shape to storm across the Serengeti. Their smaller heads house a shorter, lighter skull with large nasal cavities and their heart and lungs are larger than other cats meaning they can increase their breathing rates rapidly and pump huge amounts of blood around their body to power their muscles.

Even some of these muscles are specialised – the hind legs are packed with fast-twitch fibres which provides the explosion of power needed for such impressive acceleration. And their claws act like running spikes, helping them to grip the ground when travelling so fast.

But what people believe is the key to the cheetahs speed is something you might not expect. It’s not just down to a streamline, lightweight body or powerful muscular legs, but the most flexible spine of any cat. The joints are simple and open so they can move much more, making them quick on their feet if their prey decides to change direction. In fact, they’re so agile when running at full speed their hind and front legs actually overlap, creating a powerful spring to fire them across the plains in 10m strides. It’s these longer strides lengths and the sheer number of them that makes the cheetah a perfect sprinter – and that is thanks to a long and flexible spine, who knew!

Yathin sk via Wiki Comms

There’s a price to pay for all these specializations though. These powerful cats are built for speed, but they can’t do much else when it comes to hunting prey. Their sprints need so much energy and effort to keep their spine springing and legs moving that they can only keep it up for around 10 seconds. That’s long enough to beat Usain Bolt in a 100m final, but not to catch a tasty looking Springbok grazing 300m away. So they’ve had to adapt their hunting strategy as well.

And they’ve found the most successful method is a game of predator/prey Grandma’s footsteps. They crouch down in the grasses and stalk their prey until they’re as close as 30m. And then they pounce, tripping their prey up with a large claw in their front paw and taking the vital (and slightly horrifying) killer bite onto their windpipe – crushing it and causing their prey to suffocate – how lovely!

As you can see there is A LOT to write about these super speedy cats and there are even more athletic species I could mention. But I’ll save that until next time. One things for sure if there was ever an Animal Kingdom Olympic games, I wouldn’t be quite so relaxed if I was Usain Bolt – there’d be no question of a gold medal for the cheetah.

A Bug’s Life: The True Story (Episode 4 – Ant City Life)

The Great British picnic is one of my favourite traditions – nothing says British summer like sitting on an itchy checked blanket in National Trust gardens with a wicker picnic hamper full of nicely cut sandwiches and still lemonade (sometimes I have to remind myself I’m not starring in an Enid Blyton novel.)  Unfortunately, nothing says Great British picnic more than running away from a wasp attack and watching a line of ants eye up your pork pie crumbs. Somebody forgot to tell the insects that they weren’t actually invited (how rude and very un-British to turn up unannounced without even chipping in a side dish.)

When you think about it, maybe it’s our own fault? Who can blame the visiting insects for wanting to try the exotic buffet you’ve provided right on their front doorstep. It’s not long before you will inevitably give up trying to fend off the insect attack and sit back and watch.

And when you actually start to watch the picnic ant army carefully, you see just how impressive they really are. There’s a line of teeny, tiny ants carrying pieces of crisp more than twice their size quite comfortably away into the distance. But what happens when you drop a whole crisp? Do these poor little ants admit defeat and crawl back to the nests empty handed? Of course not! Ants are pro weight-lifting champions. A whole ready salted crisp – challenge accepted – but not without the help of a few friends. Luckily for ants, teamwork is part of everyday life and it doesn’t take them long to attract other ants to help carry or break down a large food item.

By Ellmist, from Wikimedia Commons

The behaviour of ants to carry items much larger than themselves is very well known. One of the best studied examples is that of the leaf-cutters. I’m sure we’ve all seen trails of moving pieces of leaves being guided by a line of ants underneath. Leaf-cutter worker ants do spend an awful lot of time gardening – a large colony can consume as much vegetation as a cow! The funny thing is leaf-cutter ants don’t actually eat leaves. The workers take the leaves back to the nest, clean them and chew them so they’re soft and moist before using them as ant-compost on which to grow a fungus garden. The fungi that grow in this carefully managed garden produce balls at the end of each of their fungal threads, which are rich in tasty protein. It’s this protein that the ants are keen to get their mandibles on and the workers use it to feed their developing larvae.

Harvesting and moving the leaves is a truly great example of teamwork in ants. The workers cut the leaves by anchoring their legs on to them and using their mandibles like blades to slice them. These are then transported back to the nest, but the workers aren’t alone. The trails are patrolled by large solider ants with fierce looking mandibles to keep predators away and tiny ants, call minima, ride on the tops of the leaves to ward off parasitic flies. It really is all hands on deck.

Bandwagonman via Wikimedia Commons  

Ants, like other insects in the order Hymenoptera (also home to wasps and bees), display one of the ultimate examples of teamwork. They are called eusocial species and demonstrate some of the highest levels of organisation seen in social animals. Each ant working in their huge colonies has a role or belongs to a certain caste. They divide their labour into those that reproduce, the ‘queens’ and the ‘drones’ and those that don’t, the ‘workers’ and ‘soldiers’. The non-reproductive members of the colony act as housekeepers and nanny’s to the reproductive members. They ensure everyone is fed, that the young are well cared for and they protect the colony from harm.

You may think the Queen is in charge but in these societies everyone has an extremely important role to complete. The Queen lays her eggs and leaves them in the very capable hands of the worker ants. You are certainly not born with a silver spoon in your mouth in these colonies as all ants start off as equals when they’re eggs. So how do you rise to the sunny heights of the colony to become a Queen over a worker? Interestingly research has suggested it’s the workers that decide what you will become as they control what goes into your stomach. In the ant world a change of diet – such as a change from insects to seeds – can determine just how big you’ll be. The bigger the ant the more likely you are to become a solider or maybe even a queen so there is no such thing as dieting for these creatures! Ants have got this so finely tuned that the workers will respond to their environment and control the castes in order for the colony to thrive. For example, when the colony is threatened, they’ll ensure more soldiers are produced! Pretty clever, eh?

There are a couple of particular fantastic examples that show just how much ants depend on each other that I wanted to share with you..

Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire ants
When obstacles get in the way, ants don’t back down. There’s example of colonies making living bridges of ants over pools of water so the rest of the colony can get safely across. Fire ants have also come up with a pretty nifty way of surviving through floods. They build tiny ant rafts, literally tiny rafts made out of ants! They grab onto their nestmates and interlock like blocks of Lego to form a single ball of fire ants. Their skin repels water and they trap a layer of air around their bodies to form an air pocket. They’ll happily float along and wait for the flood to pass.

Raft of Fire Ants By Turnbull FL, Wiki Commons

Never leave an ant behind
I hate being underground. The thought of being trapped makes me panic – the tunnel scenes in The Great Escape may be the scariest moment of any film for me. Unfortunately, many ants choose to build their colonies underground and sometimes the worst happens- a tunnel collapses leaving an ant buried (these poor ants are living out my worst nightmare.) Luckily for these ants, help is at hand. Ants rub certain parts of their body together to produce a sound, or an alarm call to their nestmates. This is called stridulation. For ants that find themselves buried underground, they stridulate to ‘call’ ants to help. Their nestmates willingly respond, finding the place the ant is buried and they will dig intensively until their friend is free.

Bridge of ants By Geoff Gallice via Wikimedia Commons

It’s been some time since I wrote about my favourites and I started to worry they’d feel neglected if I left it any longer. I’m glad they’re back. I hope I’m starting to show you there’s a lot more to these insects than the reason your parents used to give when you couldn’t sit still as a child.

Belly Full

I can’t pretend I love all animals. I’m not embarrassed to say that after reading up for this blog I woke up at 6am slightly terrified by a particularly unpleasant dream. It’s hard to sleep peacefully when your mind insists on showing you its own dream film production of you being slowly crushed by a boa constrictor.

I have always been terrified of snakes. I can’t happily walk through any long grass without clenching my toes and I sprint through the snake house at the zoo. And who can blame me? There are species with hook-like fangs spiked with venom that can kill an elephant with one bite on the trunk and species that coil themselves around and around their prey until the pressure causes the heart of their victim to stop. This, coupled with the fact people have found snakes as big as 10 metres long, and not forgetting the existence of the flying snake, means they really are my worst nightmare. I thank my lucky stars that their ancestors decided to do away with their limbs – I’m not sure how I’d cope if a 10 metre long constrictor suddenly charged at me on all fours.

However terrifying and creepy they may be I can’t deny they are very impressive. Recently whilst looking through a friend’s photographs of his time living in Ghana, I came across these…

They had stumbled across a very strange shaped snake. Unfortunately for this snake, it had literally bitten off more than it could chew and had died in the process. Wanting to know exactly what snack the snake had chosen, somebody decided to cut it open. Out popped a slightly digested crocodile. Just a quick *WARNING* the next photograph isn’t that pleasant…

Thank you Andy Nightingale for these beauties!

I’m sure you’ve all seen similar images in the media. It may seem like something from a horror film but, despite the terrifying images, this is definitely something to be marvelled at (and maybe slightly admired).

Of all the deadly sins, gluttony is definitely my downfall. I regularly find myself lying in a heap waiting for my mountain of roast dinner and three portions of trifle to digest. As my mum would say, my eyes are definitely bigger than my belly. However, I can happily (and thankfully) say that I have never eaten so much that I have literally exploded. I’m afraid the same can’t be said for the Burmese python who attempted to swallow a 6 ft alligator in Florida back in 2005.The python was found with the alligator’s tail bursting from its stomach. I’m afraid this was also the case for the snake my friend stumbled across in Ghana. It seems that some snakes need to learn their limits.

Snakes usually eat smaller animals like rats or frogs but even these meals are impressive to witness. Snakes can’t chew their food like we can and so they simply swallow their food whole. But how do you stop your prey in its tracks without any arms to help you? Well who needs arms when you’ve got these tricks up your sleeve (or scales)…

Some species of snake like pythons and, of course, boa constrictors kill their prey by tightening their coils around them. The snake waits for the animal to exhale and then tightens its grip, restricting the victim’s ability to breathe which causes it to suffocate or its heart to fail. Creepily it’s been suggested that constrictors can actually sense when their victim’s heartbeat stops and then loosens its grip – why waste energy trying to suffocate an animal you’ve already killed?

An unfortunate Eastern Blue Tongue lizard being squeezed by an Eastern Brown Snake (photo from wiki commons)

For some species it’s all about injecting their prey with a cocktail of toxins. Some species have modified salivary glands whilst others, like the deadly cobras, have separate venom glands altogether. This venom is a deadly mix of proteins, enzymes and other substances each with their own unique and gruesome way of killing any poor animal that happens to come into contact with them. For example, some contain hemotoxins that cause the blood of the victim to coagulate (or clot) or the Black Mambas venom contains neurotoxins that result in the victim becoming paralysed. It’s safe to say being bitten by a venomous snake doesn’t offer the nicest of exits.

Now comes the tricky bit. Even when you select a smaller meal, like a rat – how do you swallow something whole when it’s twice the size of your head? (Never mind when you decide to take on a metre long crocodile!) The big myth surrounding snake feeding is the idea that their jaws completely detach. This is not the case. The snake’s lower jaw is not completely fused together. Whilst our lower jaw is one single rigid bone, the snake’s lower jaw consists of two halves loosely connected by ligaments, which allows them to separate the two independently. The quadrate bone that connects the lower jaw to the upper jaw is hinged. This means they can open their mouths extremely wide. (You may be interested to know that we also have a quadrate bone but instead years and years ago, ours decided to move up to our middle ear to become the anvil bone. So yes, you might be upset that you can’t take on a Man Vs Food challenge in one gulp, but at least you can hear the applause of your adoring crowd when you manage to eat 3 Big Macs in record-breaking time!)

A quick sketch showing some detail of the snakes jaw – please excuse my awful handwriting. (Photo sketched from wiki commons).

Their flexible jaw is the reason some snakes can swallow their dinner whole. They face their victim head on and slowly work it down into their throat. Their skin is very stretchy and the snake’s body muscles work to steadily force the meal down into the stomach where it’s slowly digested.

Eating a large meal obviously has its benefits – taking on a crocodile can mean it’ll be two months before you have to think about catching anything else! However, eating something over twice your size obviously takes quite a bit of energy, not to mention a lot of your time which leaves you open to attacks from predators yourself. It’s definitely difficult to multitask when you’re trying to get your mouth around a head of an animal that’s twice the size of your own. Some snakes even take on birds eggs as big as 4 times the size of their head! That is definitely a recipe for indigestion. A study in 2010 found it took one python 132 hours to digest a rat completely. Imagine how long it would take to digest an even bigger meal? It’s certainly a lot of strain on your body (and it probably puts my post-Sunday lunch feeling to shame.) Taking on such a feast requires some important changes in order to cope with the digestion and storage. The heart of a snake can swell by 40% and the liver doubles in size! This doesn’t last for long and after a few days everything returns to normal. The only difference is the snake has a nice full tummy and can laze about for some time before having to find another meal.

Pictures of snakes with strange, animal-shaped lumps moving down their body are definitely quite funny to see but when you stop and think about it, it really is quite an impressive party trick. Since reading all about them (and realising I’m probably not much bigger than an crocodile) I have been planning my escape in case I’m ever unfortunate enough to come across one. I’ve not found many plausible escape plans yet and I’ve decided the best option may be to avoid them altogether. I’m happy to stay as far away from those venom-loaded fangs as I possibly can. I will marvel at their impressive table manners from afar.

You Bird Brain

It has been a very (very, very) long time since I last sat down to write. I wish I had a valid excuse. The truth is, I have finally joined the real world and got my first grown-up, full-time job. This involves starring at a computer screen for 8 hours of the day and, unfortunately, when 5 o’clock strikes, I don’t want to see another screen until at least 9 am the following morning.

I have had a strong word with myself time and time again, each time promising that my next day off would finally be the day I get blogging again. However, the normal tasks of everyday life, and ITV3’s insistence on playing re-runs of Agatha Christie’s on Sundays, all keep getting in the way. 

BUT enough is enough. It’s approaching a year since I wrote regularly and that is, quite frankly, a little embarrassing. So, I’m here at the dining room table, trying hard not to ignore my laptop in favour of starring at my cat chasing birds in the garden. As clever and sneaky as Holly the cat may be, she is continuously outsmarted (and outmanoeuvred) by her feathered prey.

There is no denying that birds are a particularly clever set of individuals. There are a few examples of particularly cunning birds I have come across that I wanted to share. It’s examples like these that make me really wonder how anyone can be so sure that animals do not have a conscious ability to think. Let’s start with my sister’s favourite…

Herons

A Black-crowned night Heron, called Hank, to be more precise. We may take it for granted during our everyday lives but for evolutionists tool-use or, more generally, using a physical object to achieve a goal, is considered to be a bit of a big deal. Millions of years ago, when our ancestors first roamed the earth, using tools was a big evolutionary step. Whilst their tools were extremely basic compared to what we are used to today, looking at a seemingly ordinary object and seeing its potential to act as a spear or an axe has been interpreted as a sign of intelligence.

For a long while, we thought we were the only animals intelligent enough to make use of tools but this is definitely not the case. There are now countless extraordinary examples of animals using objects to reach their desired goal. The corvids, which includes birds such as ravens and crows, are particularly nifty tool users but it’s Hank the heron who’s definitely top of the class for me.

Hank has found an interesting way of using an object to help him catch his favourite fishy suppers. He lives on a golf course in Hawaii (very nice, for Hank), where visitors stand at the lake throwing scraps of bread for the ducks. Hank has been seen to steal a sneaky share of this bread, but he doesn’t eat it. He can be seen standing at the edge of the lake, dropping his bready bait and waiting patiently for the fish to flock. Hank noticed that it’s not just the ducks that enjoy this free meal; the fish in the lake are drawn to the surface to have a nibble as well. Unfortunately, for the fish, when they reach the surface, it’s not the golfers that have dropped the bread. Instead, they find Hank sitting with his bill wide open, waiting for his next unsuspecting victim.

Hank isn’t the only bird to use these nifty tactics to catch prey. There are currently 12 known species of bird known to use bait as a tool to catch fish, most of these are in the heron family. By using our afternoon visits to the park as an excuse to get their hands on some bait, we have unwittingly become their partners in crime. So, the next time you skip happily to the pond, feeling more Countryfile than Kate Humble, spare a thought for our fishy friends!

Honeyguides
I’m afraid this is another example where we have been used (but, not abused) by our feathery friends. Honeyguides are one of the few species of birds that feed on wax from insects. However, it is the behaviour of just a couple of species of honeyguides that gives the birds their name. One species employing this behaviour is the Greater Honeyguide. Top of the menu for our Greater Honeyguide is beeswax. Unfortunately, for these feathery creatures, it’s very difficult to get your beak on this tasty treat when it’s locked away in a robust hive protected by an army of angry bees. Luckily for the honeyguide, they aren’t the only ones who want what’s hidden inside these hives – we do too! The honeyguides have used this desire to solve their own problem. Honeyguides are given their name because they literally guide people to the honey! Once humans are at the hives they break them open and take the honey they want. Once they’ve got out of the way, the birds swoop in and fill their stomachs with the wax that’s left in the hive.

Drongos
It’s not just people that birds have used their intelligence to trick. Some birds have conned other species of bird into helping them survive. The pied babbler  is one species that has fallen for the Drongos’ charm. Drongos follow some groups of pied babblers and act as a protector. They’ve been seen to watch over a group and screech loud alarm calls to warn them when there’s a predator about. The pied babblers reward their knight in shining armour by allowing them access to some of the food they collect. I’m sure you’ll agree this all seems to mutually benefit both species. However, sometimes the food collected is not enough for the greedy Drongos. Occasionally, the Drongo has been seen to give false alarm calls, when there is no danger in sight, in order to cause the pied babblers to flee to safety. The Drongo then has free access to all the food it desires. This is called kleptoparasitism, where individuals attempt to steal food captured by others. The pied babblers have started to get wise to this and have been seen to scare Drongos off from their group, before they’ve had a chance to con them. However, there is no denying that those pesky Drongos are definitely a fine example of bird intelligence.

I’m sure you’ll agree these birds have all thought up some pretty inventive ways of keeping their bellies full. Of course, there are many more birds I could talk about. This is just a whistle stop tour of some of my favourite feathery tricksters.

 And, with that, I’m finally back. I’ll see you again very soon, I promise.

Minifeasts

It has been a while. 

What started as one missed week quickly turned into 2 blog-less months of writing up research, finishing my master’s degree, moving back home and trying to get a job to start paying back the 4 years of borrowed money.  But this week I went back to Sheffield for my graduation and it made me realise just how much I miss science!  So I decided enough was enough…

Minifeasts

It’s 11 o’clock, you’ve been working hard all morning and your stomach starts to grumble – you need a snack to go with your morning coffee. How does a cookie sound? Good, I Imagine.  What do you fancy – chocolate chip, oat and raisin, creepy crawly?

No, you didn’t misread that.  You really could tuck into a cookie made from ground-up insects, if you wish.  Earlier this year designer Susana Soares worked alongside a team of food scientists and engineers to develop a 3D printer that makes cookies out of insect flour.  The machine was part of the ‘Insects Au Gratin’ installation running at the Wellcome Collection in London in April this year, which explored the use of insects as a food source.

Seven billion, one hundred and sixty-five million, five hundred and twelve thousand and eight hundred and sixty-seven.  That was the population of the world as of 8:59am this morning.  Fast forward to 2050 and this is supposed to reach a staggering 9 billion!  We are already struggling to feed the mouths we’ve got – so how exactly are we going to fill these 2 billion extra stomachs?

You might be thinking ‘why not just breed more cows?’ and sure, that’s one option but I’m afraid it’s really not that simple.  Whilst animal agriculture does provide us with tasty meat, it also has an extremely bad effect on our planet.  In total, greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock sector are higher than transportation.  I’ll stop you there whilst you get the image of cows breaking wind out of your head.  Gas emissions from agriculture are largely due to the farming techniques used by farmers, such as applying large amounts of fertilizers or using irrigation systems as well as the way animal waste is managed.  (Whilst cows do produce the greenhouse gas methane as part of their digestion, I should mention that it’s actually mainly released through their mouths and not the other end!  And although cows do belch a lot, they aren’t the only animals that suffer from excessive flatulence!  In fact cows, alongside animals such as sheep, deer and giraffes, belong to a group of animals called ruminants.  Ruminants have a special stomach with four compartments which helps them to digest the large about of plant material they eat.  The down side is this results in the formation of methane, a potent greenhouse gas which is released into the atmosphere when the animals break wind!) 

To reverse the environmental impact of livestock, experts believe we need to cut our meat consumption by half.   That’s all well and good, but we’ll still want meat.  We’ll still crave Sunday roasts, sausage and mash and a Big Mac. This is where insects could save the day.  The EU hopes to produce a product from insects that can be used to replace meat in prepared foods such as lasagnes and sausages.  However, this will not happen before a major change in our perceptions of insects as a food source.

Insects are not exactly what most people in the West would call ‘lunch’. Most people’s experience of eating insects will be limited to episodes of reality TV.  We are spoilt with supermarkets stocked with a huge variety of meat – beef, chicken, lamb – I even had a kangaroo burger last month.  I’ve seen ants in chocolate bars and various winged bugs in lollipops in department stores – gimmicks for the more adventurous snacker – but insects usually bring to mind thoughts of dirty, wriggly nasties, not a delicious teatime treat.  How can we convince a nation of meat eaters to put aside their cultural sensitivities and swap their bacon butty for some grasshopper fries?

Maybe some nutritional facts will help. Four grasshoppers give you as much calcium as a glass of milk. Tarantulas, although not technically an insect, provide you with 10 times the amount of zinc you get from beef.  Eating insects, or entomophagy to give it its proper name, might not be a bad idea.  There are around 1900 species of edible insects, all full of essential nutrients you need to survive.

Many Eastern countries are already making use of these nutritional benefits.  In fact, 2 billion people already eat insects as a regular part of their diet.  My favourite example occurs in Thailand, the insect-eating capital of the world, where school children catch crickets at night that are cooked at school for lunch the next day!  Can you imagine a class of 8-year-olds in this country settling down to a plateful of insects for school dinners?

Insects also make the perfect mini-livestock.  They reproduce very quickly, producing lots of biomass – 1 cricket can have 100 babies in just a month!  Insect-farming produces little greenhouse gases, so the carbon footprint is tiny compared to traditional livestock.  They require little food and even less water and, being cold-blooded, they don’t waste energy keeping themselves warm.  They could even reduce the need to use harmful pesticides to remove pests from crops – in the East removing unwanted insects that are damaging crops and selling them on as food is big business!

The benefits of eating insects cannot be denied.  But don’t panic – insect burgers won’t be served any time soon.  For one, we don’t know everything yet –allergic reactions are a possible hazard and use-by dates are causing some confusion.  But, with the world population continuing to grow and grow, we might not be able to ignore this great untapped food resource in the future.  Can you overcome your squeamish attitude in the name of filling 9 billion stomachs?

Family Feuds – Parent wars

A few weeks ago I wrote about the intense rivalry that can occur among some brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom, but this family conflict isn’t restricted to siblings – the parents are at it as well.  It’s a story of extreme selfishness, violence and even murder and it all boils down to one thing, the Holy Grail for our furry, feathered, and slimy friends – making babies.  

When it comes to continuing your family legacy, it really is a dog-eat-dog world in the animal kingdom.  Conflict arises over reproduction in many species and can begin right at the very beginning, from the moment you spot your desired mate.  Whilst some species invest a lot of time and energy into attracting a mate – producing beautiful plumage, elaborate antlers, or performing a wonderful dance or call – other species don’t bother with the formalities of courtship – there’s no elaborate ritual to show-off their ‘sex-appeal’ to try and win over a potential partner.

The bed bug is an excellent example of this.  They use a particularly romantic mode of copulation called traumatic insemination (I know – even the sound of it brings up images of candlelit dinners and love songs).  Traumatic insemination in bed bugs occurs when the male pierces the female’s side (or abdominal wall) with his genitalia and inseminates directly into her body cavity, where the sperm then makes its way to her ovary to fertilise her eggs.  It is important to point out that female bed bugs have perfectly adequate genitals for copulation, but the males have apparently decided to ignore this fact.  So, why do they take such a nasty approach?

By Piotr Naskrecki

Well it’s all in the name of sperm competition.  Not only do males have to compete to find a mate but they must continue the battle after copulation.  This is due to the polygamous nature of bed bugs (and many other animals), meaning they mate with more than one individual.  If a female mates with one male, all her eggs will be fertilised by his sperm, meaning he will father more offspring.  However, if the female mates with two or three males, all their sperm must compete to fertilise as many eggs as possible.  In the case of the bed bugs, damaging the female in this way has been shown to reduce her life expectancy significantly.  She probably won’t mate again, and as evidence has shown the sperm of the last male to mate with her has precedence, performing this harmful act is beneficial to the male – in the absence of competition from other males, his sperm will fertilise all of her eggs and so he will become the father of lots and lots of babies.

Bed bugs, unfortunately, aren’t the only male insects that harm the female in the name of sperm competition.  The genitalia of male bean weevils is covered in spines that damage the female’s genitals during copulation.  Mating with another male can reduce the life expectancy of the female which means she usually won’t bother trying again – reducing the sperm competition.  In this example however, the female has evolved to fight back.  Females kick the male during copulation, making the act shorter and reducing the damage they receive.  We have an evolutionary arms race again – the female will keep trying to prevent the male harming her, whilst the male will find new ways to make sure he prevents the female from mating with anyone else.

Some male insects aren’t so violent in their quest for fatherhood.  The male fruit fly transfers proteins alongside its sperm that kills the sperm of rival males – effective and much less gruesome for the female.

By Sarefo

I’m afraid to say the battle over reproduction doesn’t end after the act itself.  The fight to produce as many offspring as possible takes an even more sinister turn in lions after the birth of their cubs.  Prides are made up of an uneven mix of adult females and male, with females dominating the numbers.  One male will be in charge for about 2-3 years, meaning they get the pick of mating partners.  However, new males will challenge the pride leader for his place (think Mufasa and Scar in the Lion King).  If they successfully defeat the leader and take his place, they are faced with a problem – their pride is full of lionesses looking after the cubs of another male.  And females who have cubs that depend on them will not mate with another male for some time – not ideal for the male leader who only has around 2 years to make as many babies as he can.

By David Dennis

They use a horrible strategy to solve this problem – when a new male take overs they will kill any dependant cubs.  This means the females will be ready to mate sooner, allowing them to start making babies as soon as possible.

And it’s not just males who use this strategy, called infanticide.  Female Wattled Jacanas, wading birds found in South America (among other places) mate with several different males – each female has several males that care for their separate broods.  A female will control a certain area, but if for some reason she is removed – either she dies or some pesky scientist removes her for an experiment – a neighbouring female may take over her patch.  These replacement females will remove all the old female’s broods and start afresh.

There are many more examples that I think I’ll save for another day, but it is clear that in the animal kingdom conflict over reproduction is intense.  This is because males and females often have different reproductive goals.  For the female, mating with as many different males as possible may mean she produces a stronger set of offspring – she has the advantage that all the offspring she gives birth to or eggs she lays will share half of her DNA.  But males don’t have this luxury and so have to fight to make sure they father as many of the female’s offspring as possible.  And boy, are they willing to fight dirty.

 

Stutt and Siva-Jothy (2001) Traumatic insemination and sexual conflict in the bed bug Cimex lectularius. PNAS, 98 (10); 5683–5687.
Crudgington and Siva-Jothy (2000) Genital damage, kicking and early death. Nature, 407.