2 replies to this topic

[Serafine]

Not ants, but there is a very good chance this applies to ants as well:

https://news.harvard...umping-spiders/

 

It's just a lot more difficult to prove for other arthropods because most of them have fixed eyes.

[Ernteameise]

On the vet conference I had been on the weekend, they actually showed all the medical procedures they now apply to invertebrates, from tarantulas down to hornets.

One vet said owners are always massively impressed when he has a doppler probe on the tarantula and the owners can hear the heartbeat of the spider.

But yeah, with sufficiently small instruments, you can do CT and MRI scans, X-rays, endoscopy and ultrasound with invertebrates.

The world is opening up.

Just wait until we see what else we will find out about the creatures, now that all this available.

[ZATrippit]

This is very interesting!

It reminds me somewhat of what I read in the book Superfly on the subject of insect consciousness--

female fruit flies, when shown multiple instances of other females mating with weaker and genetically inferior males, will prefer weaker males themselves, even when it poses a biological disadvantage. They would also do this when male fruit flies were assigned different colours. 

Fruit flies can also focus on different subjects, mentally note things in their periphery, and learn to identify between different quantities of objects for a reward.

All of this strengthens the belief I hold that insects have a conscience.

 

When relating this to ants, aphaenogaster sp. use absorbent materials to carry liquid foods back to their nests, as a substitute for repletes. Workers, when given more absorbent materials like a sponge, would over time adapt to using these better materials; going so far as to modify the sponge into smaller chunks to make it easier to carry.