Who says ants are airheads?Who says ants are airheads? Suppose you had a large head and you learned that a lunatic was decapitating big-headed people who walked to work during the day. Would you start working the night shift? That seems the approach taken by some Atta cephalotes, tropical ants subject to decapitation Decapitation See also Headlessness. Antoinette, Marie (1755–1793) queen of France beheaded by revolutionists. [Fr. Hist.: NCE, 1697] Argos lulled to sleep and beheaded by Hermes. [Gk. Myth. by parasitic flies of the genus Neodohrniphora. After mating, female flies sneak up Verb 1. sneak up - advance stealthily or unnoticed; "Age creeps up on you" creep up advance, march on, move on, progress, pass on, go on - move forward, also in the metaphorical sense; "Time marches on" on ants foraging for leaf litter and inject a tiny fly egg into the skull of each ant. As the eggs develops into a larva larva, in zoology larva, independent, immature animal that undergoes a profound change, or metamorphosis, to assume the typical adult form. Larvae occur in almost all of the animal phyla; because most are tiny or microscopic, they are rarely seen. , or maggot maggot: see blowfly; fly; larva. , it consumes the ant's head from the inside out. Research by Donald H. Feener Jr. of the University of California, Los Angeles UCLA comprises the College of Letters and Science (the primary undergraduate college), seven professional schools, and five professional Health Science schools. Since 2001, UCLA has enrolled over 33,000 total students, and that number is steadily rising. , and his colleagues indicates that these flies -- which only fly by day -- require ant heads at least 1.6 millimeters in diameter. And the scientists report another intriguing observation: Call it evolutionary necessity rather than intelligence if you choose, but a disproportionate number of the A. cephalotes whose heads exceed 1.6 mm put off their foraging until after dark. |
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