Camelia Bhattacharyya, Amity University Kolkata
How do ants immediately become aware when their queen ant dies? Is it via “telepathy”? Ants seem to possess an unusual ability, that of telepathic communication. Telepathy refers to the communication of thoughts or ideas by means other than the known or conventional senses. It is the ability to communicate or read someone’s mind without the use of any speech, or sign language, or any other expressive gesture for that matter. Ants cannot hear, they don’t have ears, yet their communications skills are seemingly exceptional! Let’s find out how
Pheromones, the chemicals for communication:
‘Pheromones’ are small chemicals widely used by multiple species across the animal kingdom for communication. Inside the body, signals are passed via chemosensory receptors and neural circuits with the help of pheromones. Pheromones are largely subdivided into four types– trail, alarm, queen, and mammary, depending on the type of communication. Ants being social insects use the trail pheromones. These pheromones are released to signify danger or the presence of food and are received through the antennas (containing 11 types of chemosensory proteins) of other ants, which then send response signals again as feedback. The chemosensory proteins are expressed differently in different types of ants, according to the role they play in the group.
Trophallaxis:
Trophallaxis is the process in which ants exchange fluids via mouth-to-mouth for communication. They seemingly vomit the message-carrying hormones into receiving ant’s mouth for conveying pieces of information. Besides being a mode of communication, these hormones also help in the growth and development of ants. The vomit also contains food in it which ensures that an ant feeds another by the course of this process. This in turn ensures that the trophallactic fluids are used by ants to establish themselves as social creatures. This trophallactic fluid was examined by researchers to mark its constituents, which were– hydrocarbons, juvenile hormones, microRNA, and proteins; each component providing the aim of trophallaxis in ants.
Stridulation and drumming (senses of touch and frequency):
Due to restricted vision in most ants, they use other senses to communicate, the most common being touch. They touch and stroke-specific parts of each other’s body which produces vibrations indicating communication. Mostly the antennas and the forelegs are used for this. Stridulation or rubbing of forelegs and antennas against files and scrapers are commonly used by the queen ants to convey to the other mates the presence of full sperm sacs through special vibrational frequencies. Drumming or rubbing of head or antenna to create frequencies are practiced by the worker ants and the carpenter ants to convey important information.
Waggle dance:
The waggle dance is a special form of dancing movement performed mainly by honeybees. A resembling movement is also observed in ants as they instruct the rest of the colony where to find food. The famous waggle dance is used by ants to communicate the messages of foraging. These vibrational dance moves are used by foragers after finishing their foraging which further recruits other worker ants to start unloading nectar from the foragers.
Things to learn from these types of telepathies:
Ants prove to be quite the social animal, distributing workload, helping each other grow, and also providing food and signaling danger. Nature and its ways when explained through reasoning and science can open our eyes towards the needs of mimicking the ways and establishing a better community. These processes at times lead to biomimicry where the amazing uniqueness of the elements is mimicked into other elements for the ease of civilization and further continuance of evolution. One such example of biomimicry is the path-finder and optimization technologies inspired by the communication in ants. Other technologies might also evolve with time and that is the aim, to keep evolving, but not to evolve away, to only evolve together as a society and support all parts of that society.
Also read: 3D Bioprinting: A Technology for Prevention and Therapy of Infectious Diseases
Source:
- Wyatt, T. D. (2017). Pheromones. Current Biology, 27(15), R739–R743. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.06.039
- Hojo, M. K., Ishii, K., Sakura, M., Yamaguchi, K., Shigenobu, S., & Ozaki, M. (2015). Antennal RNA-sequencing analysis reveals evolutionary aspects of chemosensory proteins in the carpenter ant, Camponotus japonicus. Scientific Reports, 5(1), 13541. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep13541
- Jackson, D. E., & Ratnieks, F. L. W. (2006). Communication in ants. Current Biology: CB, 16(15), R570-574. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2006.07.015
- https://www.wired.co.uk/article/ants-throwing-up-hormones-development
- https://science.jrank.org/pages/450/Ants-Communication.html
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