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A black drongo in a typical anting posture. Anting is a maintenance behavior during which birds rub insects, usually ants, on their feathers and skin.The bird may pick up the insects in its bill and rub them on the body (active anting), or the bird may lie in an area of high density of the insects and perform dust bathing-like movements (passive anting).
Leafcutter ants are any of at least 55 species [1] [2] [3] of leaf-chewing ants belonging to the three genera Atta, Acromyrmex, and Amoimyrmex, within the tribe Attini. [4] These species of tropical, fungus-growing ants are all endemic to South and Central America, Mexico, and parts of the southern United States. [5]
Though workers can also eat the hyphae of the fungi, which is richer in protein, they prefer staphylae and appear to live longer while eating them. [35] [68] [69] Cellulose has been found to be poorly degraded and assimilated by fungus, if at all, meaning that the ants that eat the fungus do not get much energy from the cellulose in plants.
The effects of cheating ants (ants who did not bring plant biomass for fungal food) had a much smaller effect on the fitness of the relationship than when the fungi cheated by not providing gongylidia. Both effects were exacerbated in the presence of infection by Escovopsis, resulting in close to a 50% loss in fungal biomass. [20]
Honey ants are unique in using their own bodies as living storage, used later by their fellow ants when food is otherwise scarce. When the liquid stored inside a honeypot ant is needed, the worker ants stroke the antennae of the honeypot ant, causing the honeypot ant to regurgitate the stored liquid from its crop. [4] [5]
Myrmecophagy means "ant-eating" (Ancient Greek: murmēx, "ants", and phagein, "to eat"); the related habit of termite-eating is termitophagy. The two dietary habits often overlap, as these eusocial insects live in large, densely-populated, terrestrial ant colonies or termite mounds , requiring specialised adaptations from any species that ...
The symptoms of dandruff vs dry scalp can look and feel similar, but causes and treatments differ. Experts explain the difference between the two conditions. What Dermatologists Want You to Know ...
Crazy ants obtain much of their food requirements from scale insects, which are plant pests that feed on sap of trees and release honeydew, a sugary liquid. Ants eat honeydew, and in return protect the scale insects from their enemies and spread them among trees, an example of mutualism. The honeydew not eaten by the ants drips onto the trees ...