17 replies to this topic

[Seadogrun]

This is a new behavior that I haven't seen before.  Any idea what is happening?  They are eating 50:50 honey water mixture off a little cotton ball. pheidole megacephala, check out the second ant in on the right.

 

Edited by Seadogrun, November 4 2017 - 6:06 PM.

[Phoenix]

Probably spraying pheromones.

[Hunter]

my ants do it when i play music

[Connectimyrmex]

my ants do it when i play music

LOL

My ants shake their booties while drinking anything. I think that its like a turkey baster (the gaster expands and sucks up liquid)

[Hunter]

i love to watch it, how long where they doing it

[Mettcollsuss]

I've seen queens do it too sometimes, but not quite as rapidly.

Edited by Mettcollsuss, November 5 2017 - 6:16 PM.

[dspdrew]

 

my ants do it when i play music

LOL

My ants shake their booties while drinking anything. I think that its like a turkey baster (the gaster expands and sucks up liquid)

 

 

I could be wrong, but I think it's called shaking your tailfeather.

[FeedTheAnts]

Crematogasters do this when they eat.

[Serafine]

Might be some sort of sound communication.

[ctantkeeper]

This is a clear example of stridulation, a secondary means of communication that relies heavily on transmitting and detecting vibrations.

Edited by ctantkeeper, November 7 2017 - 2:32 PM.

[Mettcollsuss]

Might be some sort of sound communication.

Actually, now that you mention it, this might be an example of stridulation. It's commonly observed in leafcutters. They do this to make an ultrasonic sound to alert nearby sisters that there's food. The more they shake, the better they think the food is.

[Salmon]

This is a clear example of stridulation, a secondary means of communication that relies heavily on transmitting and detecting vibrations.

I'm pretty sure stridulation more specifically refers to sounds produced by scraping body parts together. This looks more like 'drumming'.

[Connectimyrmex]

This depends. The joints moving could make noise, or the ants could be sensing vibration.

[ctantkeeper]

stridulation reffers to both body parts "rubbing" against on another to create subtle vibrations as well as the "tapping" of the abdomen on substrate to generate vibrations. The drumming behavior Salmon referenced is actually a form of stridulation. In this case, it may be use to either deter potential predators (i.e., other ants) or attract other nearby workers of the same colony to the food source. Stridulation is used by almost all if not all species of ants in one form or another and is utilized for wide variety of purposes such as warning others of danger, attracting individuals to a food source or recruiting workers to aid workers in the event of a tunnel collapse.

Edited by ctantkeeper, November 7 2017 - 8:32 PM.

[Serafine]

There's different versions of each. Some ants have thorax spines that they can rub on abdomen plates and some just rub plates together internally where you can't see it - it produces some sort of squeeking/rubbing noise that can be heard over short distances. Another method is vibration coms by drumming with the antennas, vibrating as a whole or slamming the gaster on the floor (the last one can often be observed with ants like Pheidole or Camponotus and quickly attracts their majors).

Edited by Serafine, November 8 2017 - 2:34 AM.

[Hunter]

if you play drop that a$$ to the video its great.

Edited by Hunter, November 8 2017 - 4:37 AM.

[Diesel]

my new ants for Hunter were doing it when they started moving into their new setup. they were wafting scent around the test tube to get the others to follow. at first it was 2 then 5 then once the 1st queen left it emptied out in a hurry.

[Seadogrun]

Thanks for all the replies.  I thought it was fun to watch.