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Nature's most successful insects captured in remarkable macrophotography In Ants, photographer Eduard Florin Niga brings us incredibly close to the most numerous animals on Earth, whose ability to organize colonies, communicate among themselves, and solve complex problems has made them an object of endless fascination. Among the more than 30 species photographed by Niga are leafcutters that grow fungus for food, trap-jaw ants with fearsome mandibles, bullet ants with potent stingers, warriors, drivers, gliders, harvesters, and the pavement ants that are always underfoot. Among his most memorable images are portraits-including queens, workers, soldiers, and rarely seen males-that bring the reader face-to-face with these creatures whose societies are eerily like our own. Science writer Eleanor Spicer Rice frames the book with a lively text that describes the life cycle of ants and explains how each species is adapted to its way of life. Ants is a great introduction to some of the Earth's most successful creatures that showcases the power of photography to reveal the unseen world all around us.
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Publié par

Date de parution

18 mai 2021

EAN13

9781647000042

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

10 Mo

A N T S

Ants

WORKERS

OF THE WORLD

Ants

ABRAMS, NEW YORK

Photographs by

EDUARD FLORIN NIGA

Text by

ELEANOR SPICER RICE

WORKERS

OF THE WORLD

CONTENTS

1.

A WORLD OF ANTS

7

2.

FROM PLANT TO ANT

13

3.

THE BIRTH OF A COLONY

17

4.

A FEMALE REALM

25

5.

MYSTERIOUS MALES

37

6.

WHERE FORM MEETS FUNCTION

51

INDEX

142

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

144

Gigantiops destructor , Northern South America, worker

7

THEY ALL LOOK LIKE ANTS FROM HERE,

we say of other people, when we

are looking down from up high. Faceless, silent ants, going about their business, without

personality or wants, determined, moving in one direction or another, following paths to a

goal. Of course, once on street level, we see people again, with unique faces and manners of

dressing, distinctive voices and desires. We are not like a bunch of ants after all , we may think,

surrounded by the wondrous diversity of our own human-ness. But most of us have not been

on an ant s street level, have not looked ants in the eyes as we have each other. It s not easy to

do. Even an ant from one of our largest species, Dinomyrmex gigas , standing on tiptoe, end-

to-end, is dwarfed almost seventy times over in length by the most average of us.

Though ants are tiny, we can t help but be aware of them. They are among the most

ubiquitous and successful creatures on earth. Sit still for a moment outside on a warm day.

Watch. Ants will surely reveal themselves. They are always there. They fan out across our

lawns, trail along our stoops, benches, walls, and kitchen counters, march across sidewalk

cracks. Most city blocks house more ants than there are people in the whole city.

Beyond human borders, ants fill niches at every snag of the food web. Endangered red-

cockaded woodpeckers pluck acrobat ants from tree trunks, filling their bellies with workers

of a group that sustains countless species of animals. Winnow ants plant seeds that shape

forests. Asian needle ants creep through fallen trees, hunting for termites. Trap-jaw ants,

smaller than poppy seeds, are lions of the soil, snapping springtails beneath the grass and

leaf litter between their lightning-quick jaws.

1

.

A WORLD OF ANTS

Dinomyrmex gigas , Southeast Asia, worker
8

Without ants in our cities, towns, fields, and forests, life as we know it would stop. They are

soil turners (they turn more soil, as a group, than earthworms), seed planters, belly fillers, pest

destroyers. From root to tip, basement to rooftop, the ants make their way. As they do, they

silently help us make our way, too.

To watch ants work is one thing; to see an ant up close is another. From our usual vantage,

they look to most of us like generic insects, red or black, walking in robotic trails or running

in frenzies. Up close, ants become remarkable creatures, and we can classify individuals by

species. With more than twelve thousand species on earth, each one with its own habits, ants

are astounding in diversity and form. The ants sneaking water from your bathroom sink are

likely not the same species as the ants on your kitchen counter, and both are vastly different

from the ants waving leaves like flags across tropical forest floors. Each of these species, up

close, looks as different as tigers from lions, and lions from house cats.

Spines, hairs, landscapes of grooves and textures give each species its own face. The

shape of its body, stocky or willowy, gentle slopes or armored angles, can give hints about

its habits and lifestyle. To see an ant up close is to receive a gift of introduction, a window

to understanding the nature of these tiny giants that run the world. Come, make their

acquaintance.

Lasius niger , Northern Hemisphere, workers

with three queens, life-size
9

DINOMYRMEX

Like their giant reptilian namesakes, Dinomyrmex gigas are some of the world s largest ants.

Soldiers can easily straddle soda bottle caps (28.1 millimeters/1.11 inches). Though gargantuan

by ant standards, Dinomyrmex aren t fearsome, at least as far as humans are concerned. Instead

of stinging, they spray formic acid on adversaries. These gentle giants roam forests at night,

looking for honeydew to satisfy their constant sugar habit and bird droppings, which they eat to

gain valuable nitrogen.

Dinomyrmex gigas , Southeast Asia, worker

11

13

ALMOST 170 MILLION YEARS AGO -

85 million years before the first tyrannosaurus

gave a toothy yawn-ants made their appearance on earth. Descended from solitary wasps,

they likely rambled through primordial forests before the late Cretaceous. Until the advent of

flowering plants, these ants were relatively inconspicuous compared to other, more dominant

creatures of the forest.

Many species of plants and insects have coevolved, yielding strong-but-delicate relationships

that endure and proliferate, life with life, abundance with abundance, change with change.

Our natural areas disclose these ancient bonds. A profusion of plant species offer shelter,

protection, and sustenance to as many ant species. They nest in our forests, on our lawns, in

our house plants, and in the boughs of trees that line our city streets. Peonies beckon ants to

their buds with extrafloral nectaries, and the ants protect the buds from pests like caterpillars,

eager to eat tender petals, until they bloom. In fact, more than two thousand plant species

have such nectaries to request ant protection of blooms. In the tropics, cecropias proffer ant

food from their tender leaves and stems. Acacia trees have hollow shelters for ants, while

violets and trillium, among others, coat their seeds with elaiosomes, a sort of ant candy, to

entice ants to disperse, plant, and fertilize their seeds.

With blooms came a wealth of food resources and habitats for ants. Fossil records reveal that,

as flowering plants spread in diversity and abundance across the planet, so did ants. By about

50 million years ago, ants were dominating other species across the planet. Their small colony

structures became as diverse as their physical forms. Some species had one queen and a few

workers while others had countless queens and countless workers. Some species had queens

much larger than their workers, and for others it was hard to tell the two apart. Some species

could reproduce parthenogenetically-that is, without mating.

2

.

FROM PLANT TO ANT

Pachycondyla

species (extinct), queen with two males

trapped in Baltic amber, 45-50 million years old
14

They filled every niche and corner they could squeeze into. Some became specialists-even

extreme specialists, tied to one species of plant for life-while others evolved generalist

behaviors, with catholic diets and flexible nesting habits. With each niche carved, ants helped

carve the earth s ecological path. Today, they have colonized every corner of the earth, save

Antarctica, and are dominant creatures in every habitat.

Through fossils and ants preserved in amber, we can watch ants evolution unfold. Their

physical forms are saved forever, three-dimensional, nearly perfect. As two ants are locked

in an embrace or arrested while foraging, we can see their eyes and waists, wings and legs.

These specimens, millions of years old, don t look much different from ant species today.

Their last act-trundling one by one over tree bark-is frozen in time, covered in sap, and

preserved for millions of years.

TOP LEFT: Formicinae family, queen trapped in Mexican amber, 25-30 million years old

TOP RIGHT: Pachycondyla species (extinct), male trapped in Baltic amber, 45-50 million years old

OPPOSITE: Possibly Dolichoderinae family, two workers trapped in Baltic amber, 40-50 million years old

17

TO TELL THE LIFE CYCLE OF AN ANT

is to tell the life cycle of a whole colony.

Individual ants act as cells of the great living being, the colony. Ants represent the highest

social organization in the animal kingdom: eusociality. Their societies operate to preserve

and protect the colony, often at the expense of the individual. If a worker ant dies, her nest

can persist; her mother will continue to provide her sisters with others to take her place.

Within their reproductive division of labor, queens make new cells-workers and males-

and workers help the body move, stay clean and safe, and eat. All workers are female, and for

most ant species, all workers are sterile. Males mate with queens. Overlapping generations

of sisters share the nest, and sisters cooperate to care for the young. The result is a group of

complex, resilient societies with unparalleled success on the planet.

Ants have complete metamorphosis. That means that, like butterflies, flies, and beetles,

when the young hatch from eggs, they look very different from adults. Butterflies have

their caterpillars. Flies have maggots. Beetles have grubs. And ants have legless, faceless,

pearlescent larvae, covered in stiff little hairs. These hairs lend a grip to their sisters, who

carry them about tenderly between their jaws. They also offer balance to the larvae, who can

do little more than wiggle and open their mouths to receive food from their sisters mouths.

A haircut would result in a tumbling larva.

After a span of eating and resting, larvae pupate. Some species spin silken cocoons like

moths, while others simply pupate inside their last larval skin. Though silent and still,

pupae undergo remarkable transformations. The creatures inside grow legs and antennae,

eyes, spines, hairs, claws, jaws. Their bodies become segmented; their brains develop to

accommodate the new lives they will soon lead. After a few days, they emerge as ants.

3

.

THE BIRTH OF A COLONY

Messor barbarus , Western Mediterranean, queen

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